


Never Doubt

by rayemars



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gore, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-07 19:36:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 68,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayemars/pseuds/rayemars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Aesir won't accept a king who would ride into battle and be unable to tell enemy from ally, so when his berserker nature is discovered, Thor and Loki's inheritances and roles are upended drastically. But some things never change.</p><p>Prompted by <a href="http://wantstobelieve.tumblr.com/">wantstobelieve</a>'s chilling <a href="http://wantstobelieve.tumblr.com/post/66024930815/give-me-mjolnir-and-i-am-yours-to">inverse AU art</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning Years

**Author's Note:**

> Quote paraphrased from Impey and Henry's Dreams of Other Worlds.

_A black hole was recently discovered in binary orbit with a huge star. While the star has the greater mass, its energy is steadily being siphoned; how the pair came to be in such a tight embrace is unknown._

_The companion star will also die as a black hole. The binary will collapse as the two circle in a death spiral until they coalesce._

 

For years it seems the fate written for Asgard is never-ending ascendancy.

The war with Jotunheim is decisively won. There is greater peace across the realms than since Borr's reign. And Odin sits unchallenged on his throne, with an heir to one day take his place and a spare in case of ill-fortune.

Odin sees his legacy stretch out across the centuries in a testament to his wisdom and cleverness, his hardihood with weapons, his sense of mercy always tinged with cunning, and to the raw power required to hold nine disparate and squabbling worlds to one god's desire.

His fortune is so grand, his glory so great, that once in a rare while there are even times when he does not brood on the prophecies of Ragnarök but instead simply enjoys what is before him: the love of his beloved wife, the awe and respect of his pleasing sons, the devotion of his fierce warriors.

And then comes the day when his sons begin learning warfare.  
  
  
The first day their sons are set to spar with real weapons against older, battle-seasoned warriors, Odin and Frigga watch from the walkway.

Thor is brasher than Odin prefers--smiling too much, teasing his partner, in many ways just cocky and young--but he's already strong for his age, and Odin thinks there's no harm in it yet.

Later, he plans to speak to the boy and to his trainers, to make sure Thor learns the restraint necessary to survive in battle. But for now he only smiles faintly as he watches his son dodge a blade aimed at his chest, and shakes his head when a taunt falters on Thor's lips as he trips over an unnoticed spear handle.

Odin is called away in the midst of Loki's spar to pass judgment on a brief and quickly quelled uprising in the dungeons. He spares the life of a few prisoners with future use, orders the rest executed as an example, and does not worry about returning to see the end of Loki's fight: he has watched his second son spar before.

Odin has paid more attention to Loki than Thor over these past months, studying the boy keenly as he's taught to fight. The change is unquestioned but noticeable, because Odin is having his sons trained separately.

In the worst case--if there becomes a worst case--he does not want Loki to have foreknowledge of Thor's abilities.

But Loki reveals no inborn traits of Laufey's. Odin marks his developing talent at magic as a possible concern, but marks also that all the tricks he displays are Frigga's own teachings.

Odin isn't compelled to see Loki's spar in its entirety because he's begun to trust that the child is his. He's begun to believe that the brief flash of pity he felt in that temple in Jotunheim will not lead to the ruin of his kingdom and line.  
  
  
Loki notes his father's departure in the middle of his trial, but has little time to think about it.

Despite his mother's patient tutoring in hand-to-hand combat, it's still not a way of fighting he likes. He prefers to be at a distance, where battle becomes a board game and he has the space to see where his opponents will move. But that is not the Aesir way.

And Loki has noticed that some members of the royal retinue--not many, just a few of his mother's closest ladies-in-waiting, a few of his father's highest counselors, Heimdall--watch him from the corner of their eyes when they think he can't see. They rarely smile at him, no matter what jokes he tells. He knows it isn't the jokes themselves, because they'll laugh when Loki tells one to Thor and has him pass it along.

Loki knows that no one looks down on his mother for her magic; but she can also fight with a blade.

So he trains with swords and dirks and daggers and practices every day, no matter how much he hates having his vision narrowed to the immediate opponents before him. No matter how disadvantaged he feels letting them get so close before he attacks.

But he _does_ feel disadvantaged, and it's a weakness his opponent sees and exploits easily.

Loki is soon being chased and caged between obstacles: a brazier, a wall, a rack of weapons. He has to restrain the urge to fight dirty, to kick grit into his opponent's eyes and dart into an open area while he's blinded. That is not the Aesir way.

So Loki twists and scrabbles and weaves his way free each time instead, and each time his escapes grow narrower as his opponent learns his methods.

In part of his mind and with a distraction he can't afford, Loki thinks that it's going to be a long time before he feels ready for a real battle, and that he's starting to not give a _damn_ if it's not the Aesir way he hates this and is going to demand to be taught long-range weapons, and that he's glad his father left. Thor won his match and got his opponent on one knee, but Loki knows he's going to lose soon. His hand is already half-numb from a strike his opponent dealt with the flat of his blade, so he has to grip his sword tighter, which makes the handle sweaty and aggravates the ache in his fingers. He wishes he could just use magic.

He prefers magic to swords, so he subconsciously guards his hands. His opponent noticed that long ago, and has only drawn out the spar because Loki's trainer directed him in order to see how the boy would act under pressure.

But the trainer has seen enough. He nods at the warrior; and a few short breaths later Loki is disarmed and on his knees, wrists aching from sharp stinging blows and scowling in frustration.

His opponent puts the tip of his sword near Loki's heart out of habit. To take the bite out of the defeat, he smiles faintly as he says, "Not bad for--"

Thor crashes into the warrior, knocking him away from Loki and driving him to the dirt, and goes for his throat.  
  
  
The warrior is dead by the time Odin rushes back to the training grounds. More are injured from going to his aid, more still from trying to restrain Thor.

Odin returns to find Frigga short of breath as she struggles to keep their son contained in an illusory maze, raising new walls as quickly as Thor batters them away. Loki is huddled against the railing below her, a sword thrust out before him, his eyes wide as he stares at his brother.

Odin is a god of warriors, and the noose and the spear are his tokens. He shouts for the Einherjar and the rest to clear back, murmurs to Frigga when to drop her illusion, and then enters the arena and strides up to his son. As soon as Frigga releases the maze, he hefts his spear.

One strike from the handle of Gungnir wrenches Thor out of his rage as countless other blows never could.

Thor soon slumps to the ground, his gaze fogging as weariness seeps into his limbs and replaces fury. In the corner of his eye Odin sees Frigga lean over the balcony and pull Loki to his feet. She's still panting, and he knows how much magic she must have drawn on to be so drained.

Odin is a god of warriors and so of berserkers; and as he stares down at his son, he wonders how he missed this one.

~

Loki sees little of his father after that. Odin's hands are full with ruling the realm and managing Thor.

Loki continues to learn magic and combat from his mother, and makes someone teach him throwing knives. He practices those with greater enthusiasm and grows more proficient with them than swords. The people who used to look at him distrustfully don't anymore; now when they glance at him, it's as though they're considering whether he's the better of two bad options.

He does not see his brother much.

At first Loki doesn't mind. His mother has to take him to the library and show him records about the frenzied Midgardian warriors who claim his father as their patron before Loki can even comprehend that Thor is still in Asgard. He assumed the boy who tore into the Einherjar was an enemy who snuck past Heimdall's guard and stole Thor's face.

He assumed all they had to do was find Thor and bring him back, and lock the impostor away, and then things would be the way they're supposed to again.

"No," his mother explains, when he says as much. "He is your brother."

She closes the book and takes it back to its stand. "These are just...fits. An illness we can cope with. He's still Thor."

Loki bites his lip as he recalls the training grounds, and all the blood on Thor's hands, and how Thor hit the warrior until Loki could see bone beneath the shattered fragments of his helm.

But when his mother turns around, he lets go of his lip and nods.

She looks sincere; and even though Loki isn't sure he believes her, he wants to. So he tries.  
  
  
He does not see his brother much, and as that one horrendous memory slowly sinks below all the earlier good ones, eventually he does begin to mind.

Loki enjoys learning from his mother, and he isn't really sorry for the respite from his father's heavy presence, even though he knows he shouldn't feel that way. But he misses Thor.

They used to have so much fun together, hunting and fishing and running through Asgard and getting into trouble and then talking their way out of it or trying to escape before anyone could spot them and tell their father. Now, he feels alone.

But the few times he _does_ see Thor it's in their father's care; and as soon as Loki glimpses his face, the good memories evaporate.

Thor doesn't look the same anymore. His eyes are almost always on the ground now. But sometimes Thor glances up at him, and the emotion simmering behind his gaze is hurt and raw and furious. It makes Loki's stomach twist.

Soon whenever they pass in the hall or by the training grounds or in the throne room, Loki tilts his head away before Thor can catch his eyes.  
  
  
He does not see his brother much, until the evening Thor breaks into his room and begs, " ** _Hide me_**."

Loki was concentrating on a spell and didn't hear Thor climbing up the balcony until he vaulted the railing, so Thor startles him badly. Loki jolts and scrambles away from his table and then thinks that that was stupid because now he's trapped with the wall at his back.

The desperation in Thor's voice stills him.

Loki hates to admit it--because of pride, and the urge to be loyal to his family, and pride again--but Thor's presence frightens him. His weapons are out of reach on the table, and if his mother's magic could barely restrain Thor there's no chance Loki's own will hold up against him yet.

But even during the worst trouble they've gotten into, he's never heard Thor sound this apprehensive. He's never heard him this pleading or exhausted.

If it were anyone but his older brother, Loki would call him scared.

Thor remains by the balcony, shoulders slumping as Loki remains silent and distant.

"Please," he asks. Loki can't remember the last time Thor used that word without drawling it out because their mother made him say it. "Brother, _please_."

Loki shifts on his feet, keenly aware of the wall behind him. Thor watches him for a long, silent moment before finally squeezing his eyes shut and biting his lip. 

Loki shifts again. He thinks of all the times Thor grinned and crowed about how he would fight the trolls or the Jotnar or the bilgesnipe or any number of other monsters, and how Loki didn't have to worry because Thor would look out for him.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Then he scrubs his sweating palms against his pants, and forces his back straight and walks over to his brother.

Thor flinches sharply when Loki sets his hands on his shoulders. For a second Loki freezes; but then he sucks in another breath and pushes gently. Thor stumbles backward, and when they reach the corner he crouches as Loki urges him down.

"You have to be still," Loki warns as he starts to weave a glamour over the spot. "Or it'll break. It doesn't hide sound either, so stay quiet."

Thor nods once, and then goes completely still. The last thought Loki has while Thor's still in sight is that his brother looks like a cowed animal.

For the first time in his life, he feels a spark of real hatred for their father.

Loki stomps it down a breath later in surprise and disgust, and finishes the glamour. The corner looks empty once more; Thor is so quiet Loki's not completely sure he's breathing.

"Breathe," he whisper-hisses, glancing at his door as the sound of boots begins to echo in the hall. "If you pass out and fall through it, that won't do much good either."

For a brief second Thor chuckles, and the sound almost resembles his old laugh.  
  
  
When the Einherjar arrive, Loki is seated at his table and sharpening a knife. The ingredients he was working with before are pushed aside; his nerves are too jittery to maintain two spells right now, and he won't risk the one concealing Thor.

"Enter," he calls at the knock on his door.

One of the warriors pushes it open, then stops just past the threshold with a bow. "Prince," he says. "Have you seen Thor?"

Loki frowns hard.

He sets the knife down and turns in his chair to look at the Einherjar. "I haven't seen Prince Thor lately," he replies. "Why?"

The warrior looks at him, his expression half-shadowed by his helm. Loki stares back and doesn't let his face change.

The warrior dips his head. "The king wishes to see him immediately."

"Oh." Loki nods in acknowledgement.

"If I see him I'll tell him," he says. Then--because he knows the role he needs to play since he's been living it these past months--he adds, "Or alert someone."

The warrior bows again. "Thank you, Prince Loki," he says, and goes.

Loki stares at the knives on his table and wonders just how bad things have become.

He holds up a hand a moment later, even though there's been no sound from the corner. "Wait, to make sure they leave," he murmurs.  
  
  
The Einherjar depart after warning the servants in the area; but Loki's caution is rewarded when his father's ravens fly past his balcony not long after.

They pass by a second time later, more slowly. Then, at last, they're gone.

Loki closes his curtains and finally lets the glamour dissolve.

He releases a breath he didn't realize he was holding when Thor is visible again. His brother was so silent that Loki occasionally thought Thor was no longer there, that Thor had been stolen out from beneath his magic without Loki realizing it.

He swallows and says flippantly, "Father wishes to see you."

Thor makes an ugly noise.

Then he glances at Loki as he rises to his feet, and snorts. Finally, he laughs for real.

Thor stretches away his stiffness before letting his arms drop to his sides. "Thank you," he says quietly.

Loki shifts uncomfortably, unsure how to respond.

He doesn't want to ask Thor what's gone on since that day at the training grounds. While they were waiting, Loki realized that whatever their father's done, their mother must know of it--and he doesn't want to think deeper about that. He doesn't want to think on it at all.

But the space between them grows more awkward the longer he's silent, until Loki thinks that if it gets any worse they won't feel like family at all anymore.

He shrugs. "You're my brother. I wouldn't...."

He scratches his wrist and doesn't finish the sentence, not wanting to say the words 'betray' or 'abandon' or 'deny' out loud.

Thor doesn't seem to mind. He catches Loki's darting gaze and smiles--but slowly, like it's been a long time and the expression no longer feels natural to him.

The spark of hatred lights in Loki's chest again.  
  
  
Thor doesn't want to talk about the past months any more than Loki wants to ask, so instead they play games.

Loki cheats a little at first. Then he cheats openly and flagrantly, because no matter what Thor doesn't call him on it; and then he stops because it's starting to feel bad and plays fair instead. He still wins every time.

Thor tries harder if Loki prods him, but he's distracted and jumpy and can't concentrate enough to defeat him. He tenses each time a servant passes in the hall; he reflexively rolls to a crouch when the changing of the guard occurs outside.

Eventually Loki grows more and more tired and begins just shifting his pieces in response to Thor's moves rather than thinking ahead. It's getting harder to keep his eyes open, and if he shuts them for even a little bit he starts nodding off. But Thor is still edgy with adrenaline, so Loki forces himself to keep awake.

When he can't anymore, Loki rigs traps in front of the door and balcony and at last manages to convince Thor to go to sleep.

Loki falls unconscious almost as soon as he drops onto the bed. He doesn't know when Thor finally calms down enough to rest, but he must have eventually: when Loki wakes, his brother is curled up beside him, his back pressed against Loki's arm.

Their father is standing in his room, staring down at them with an unreadable expression. Loki's traps have been dismantled without ever going off.  
  
  
Thor is woken and taken away, and Loki is soon called before the king.

Odin requests his presence in the throne room instead of his quarters, and Loki is escorted there by two Einherjar. When they enter, his father sends the warriors away and gestures for Loki to come closer.

The throne room is wide and spacious, but it still presses in on him as he obeys. Loki struggles to keep his shoulders straight and feels nauseous as he approaches, though he's not sure if it's because he's nervous or because he was denied breakfast before being summoned.

Maybe he's not supposed to be sure, he thinks, distracting himself as he stares at the seat instead of his father and drags his feet up the long, empty path to the throne. Maybe that's the point--to keep him afraid, and honest. His father's done similar things before when he and Thor have really gotten into trouble, the kind where they knew they couldn't talk their way out of it because it escalated beyond what they intended.

Then he feels ashamed of thinking something so cold of their father, and shoves the thought down.

Then he thinks of Thor flinching back at his touch, and hiding in the corner with his knees pulled tight to his chest.

Loki isn't sure what to think anymore, so he tries to force his expression into something abashed but calm. He reaches the foot of the dais and stands at attention, and meets his father's eyes.

It takes him a breath to recover at the narrow, distrustful gaze he finds there. Odin seizes on the opening and orders Loki to describe exactly what happened last night, and to explain why he disobeyed his command.

Loki tells him everything and manages not to fidget with the hem of his tunic more than twice. Once he finishes, his father stares him in silence for a long, long time, until Loki has to fold his hands behind his back and settle his feet more firmly on the stone to keep still.

His father exhales quietly.

His voice softens a fraction when he says, "You don't have to keep lying, my son. Thor won't hear of this."

Loki blinks.

"I--" He trips over his tongue for a moment, confused, because he's not used to being called a liar when he's telling the truth. "I'm not. I hid him, and then we played games and slept."

"Loki." The kindness is gone, his father's voice turned sharp once more.

"I swear!" he replies. It comes out pleading, making him sound childish--but he doesn't know what he's doing wrong, why his father demanded the truth and now won't accept it. "I promise, we stayed in my room and didn't talk to anyone else or go anywhere."

Odin looks at him for a very long time.

At last he repeats, "You stayed together all evening, and played games, and talked."

"Yes!" Loki nods rapidly. Just in case, he adds, "Mostly we played games."

"And Thor was fine?" his father asks.

"Yes?" he replies, thrown again and starting to grow frustrated with the feeling.

His father is still watching him closely. "He didn't attack you?"

Loki blinks again, frowns. Without thinking, he says, "No. Why would he?"

Odin studies him without answering. He stares for so long that Loki begins twisting his fingers behind him as doubt creeps back into his chest.

He thought Thor would attack him at first too. When he turned to see Thor on his balcony, Loki was sure he'd come to try and kill him.

With the look that's been in Thor's eyes the last several months, Loki thought his brother hated him.

But Thor didn't act like that at all. He was pushy and nervous and fidgety, but whenever their fingers brushed over the gameboard or their legs touched as they shifted, it was Thor who shrunk back more than Loki. It was Thor who seemed more afraid of being struck than him.

So why does his father think he's lying?

If he's so sure that Thor would hurt him, what does he know that Loki doesn't?

His father exhales again, and deflates with the action. He's still imposing, still the king of Asgard on his throne, but now he only looks like he usually does instead of seeming so dangerous it makes Loki's heart pound in his chest.

"Hm," he murmurs, before he straightens slightly and nods. "Very well. You may go."

Loki almost asks if he's going to be punished, and then stops himself from saying something _that_ dumb and bows and leaves.  
  
  
He's in the middle of eating the breakfast his mother's servant dropped off and wondering why there are so many extra plates when there's a knock on his door. Loki takes a drink and calls, "Enter."

Thor pushes the door open, but hesitates on the threshold when Loki freezes up.

"...They're cleaning my room," he explains. "Mother told me to wait here."

Loki glances again at the extra plates and snorts quietly.

He starts laying them out on the other side of the table. "Come here," Loki orders, waving Thor into the room, because he doesn't like seeing him half in the doorway. It makes him feel once again like this is a stranger who took Thor's face; his older brother should never be so unsure.  
  
  
Later, Loki sits against the footboard of his bed and concentrates fiercely on the bowl of water in his hands. Reflected within are the images and sounds being relayed by the small bird Loki crafted and sent to perch outside his father's quarters. Their parents are fighting.

It sounds like an old argument; they interrupt each other in the middle of sentences, making it hard to understand. It doesn't help that the water muffles the shouting. But the scrying is a tenuous set of interlocking spells that Loki is half-holding together with sheer force of will, and if he risks trying to improve it, it might just fall apart instead. He manages to gather that they each think they are doing what's best for Thor, and they each disagree with the other.

Loki's relieved to hear it. The little he deciphers of what Odin's done makes him so angry his hands shake, but at least now he knows their mother didn't like it. His brother was betrayed by only one parent, not both.

Beside him, Thor is curled in on himself with his lip between his teeth and his hands clenching his arms, drawing blood.

Despite his fury, Loki is nervously aware of how hard Thor's shaking. But he can't shift away or even look over--the slightest lapse of concentration and the spell will break, and he wants to know as much as possible. The best he can do is press his leg hard against Thor's, and hope.

Thor shies aside at the touch, and if Loki could spare the effort he would curse their father.

But after several tense breaths, his brother slowly loosens his grasp.

It takes him longer to release his split lip. Once his trembling finally stops, Thor takes another deep breath and then settles gingerly against Loki's shoulder, taking care not to jostle the bowl.

Loki leans a little harder against him and continues to stare into the water as their parents finally let go of their anger and sit down to discuss the future. Their voices drop when they do, too low to be heard anymore. When Loki tries to send the bird closer, the spells snap and the water turns blank, reflecting only him and Thor.

~

It soon becomes obvious, and then official, that Loki is the crown price.

He's forced back into training with short-range arms, because he will have to lead at the head of armies now instead of finding a safer, slyer way to solve problems. He has to sacrifice the time he formerly devoted to learning magic to studying diplomacy instead. He crawls into bed at the end of the day but then cannot sleep for hours, his thoughts tangled up in the web of alliances, treaties, feuds, grudges, wars, and affairs that make up the interconnection of the Nine Realms, because he is told more and more each day and there are always tests to see what he's retained--and his father does not bear his failures well. Odin only acts disappointed if he forgets some finer point, but Loki senses the frustration simmering beneath his facade. It seems to rise closer to the surface each day.

It's not until one of them is chosen that Loki realizes he always assumed it would be Thor.

His brother drew people to him with his smiles and laughter, inspired loyalty instinctively among the nobles' children that they played with, was always ready to face a threat head-on. Thor never needed to be told what was and wasn't the Aesir way; he just _knew_. He was the first-born and their father loved him best, even though their mother has always insisted there are no favorites between them.

How could it have ever not been Thor?

But the Aesir do not want a king who will ride into battle and then be unable to tell enemy from ally. They do not want a king who has already spilled Aesir blood not in an honorable duel but in a frenzied rage.

And so the throne will pass to Loki instead.  
  
  
Despite all possible efforts, despite the knowledge among the servants and Einherjar to tread widely around him, the potions Frigga makes that he drinks with significant distaste, and the general reluctance of the Aesir to come near him as rumors spread, Thor continues to slide into his berserker fits.

His trainers suffer the brunt of it, because until another heir is born there remains the possibility that the throne will go to him if Loki falls early, and he must know how to fight. To be one of Thor's trainers is to be one of the best-paid of the royal servants, richly rewarded and denied little, and to wake each morning in peace-time knowing it might be the last.

Most days it doesn't come to that. Odin is always near at hand during his son's trainings, there to stop him before harm becomes death.

Then one day Odin isn't there; but Loki is.

When it becomes clear there's no swift aid coming, and the trainer is slumped in his own blood and possibly dead, Loki throws a buckler at Thor's head. Thor catches it and turns to him, abandoning the warrior on the ground.

Loki's breath shortens and his guts clench as Thor grins wide over the rim. His brother tosses the shield aside and advances--not running, he's no longer frenzied like a few moments ago, but instead pacing like a predator--toward him.

Loki turns and flees.

Thor chases after him. Loki leads him along the paths least tread at this time of day, scrabbling over walls and jumping down stairs and running with no strategy other than to tire Thor out and avoid as many other gods as possible until their father arrives and stops him.

It's the lack of a plan that traps him in the end; that, and his belief that he knows what a berserker is.

By the time Loki realizes Thor has been herding him toward the Bifrost, he has no escape left but to run onto it.

Loki races across the rainbow bridge until his terror of it is stronger than his dread of Thor, and then he swerves to the side and begins climbing one of the suspension pillars instead. Thor follows him up--but the long chase has finally begun to wear on him, and he slows as he climbs.

It's worn at Loki too. But he has fear driving him, and he manages to stay out of reach.

By the time Heimdall arrives, Thor has stopped completely, conserving his remaining energy to grasp the cables and keep his gaze on Loki. Loki clings to the metal a short length above and stares down, breath ripping from his parched throat.

As Heimdall starts climbing toward them, Thor gives Loki a small, almost imperceptible smile.

Loki clutches the pillar tighter as it shakes under Heimdall's ascent. It's going to break, he knows it is--it's going to fracture under the weight of them all, the rainbow will shatter and send him plummeting into the cold waters and then over their edge into oblivion, he hates this bridge, he **hates** this bridge.

He hates this bridge, and Thor knows that.

"You're finally looking at me," Thor says below, his voice hoarse. "You still ignore me half the time. I miss you."

Loki strangles down a whine and tries to force his aching legs to push him higher, and grips the metal until his fingers begin to go numb. The knives in his belt dig painfully into his hip.

Thor keeps smiling until Heimdall reaches him and hefts him up, and starts hauling him back down the pillar.

Heimdall doesn't offer Loki any aid, ostensibly because his hands are full with Thor. But Loki knows the other god dislikes him for some reason he hasn't yet uncovered and hates him back in consequence, so he forces himself to slide down a cable until his feet hit the bridge, expecting it to crack under them as soon as he lands and send him dropping even farther. It doesn't.

He swallows a scream when he spots the Einherjar riding toward them, but the bridge doesn't break beneath their forces either. In a cold and logical part of his mind Loki knows his fears are unfounded: entire hosts of the Aesir have ridden out on the Bifrost. It won't collapse beneath a half-dozen horses and gods.

He knows this; but he still shakes.

Odin drags Thor up on his horse and turns back toward Asgard. Loki rejects the hand one of the Einherjar offers and says he'll walk instead. He waits until they're following the king and have ridden partially away before he starts--if the bridge _does_ break, it's more likely to do so under their weight than his.

He pauses when Heimdall speaks behind him. "You kept him away from the others."

Loki--drained and jittery, wanting desperately to be back on solid ground--barely glances over his shoulder. "Of course."

"Well done," the other god says, quiet but audible.

Loki is thrown by the compliment, frowns automatically, and then has to say something to make the expression make sense. "If you were watching, you should have come to my aid sooner."

"I didn't think you would set foot on the Bifrost," Heimdall answers neutrally. "You always tread this bridge as if it burns your soles."

Loki makes an angry noise in the back of his throat and storms off.

But he takes care not to stomp his boots on the bridge and to keep to its center. When he glances over his shoulder once he's finally returned to land, Heimdall has resumed his post in the sphere.

Loki returns to the palace by a long and sparsely populated route, and manages not to crumple until he's slammed the door to his rooms behind him.  
  
  
His father calls him to his quarters that same evening, fortunately after Loki has managed to compose himself and mostly shaken off the feeling of the Bifrost's fragility beneath his feet.

He thanks Loki solemnly. Odin says he is sorry he had to go through that ordeal, but that Loki held himself admirably during it; and he begins to murmur something about hoping--and then Odin catches himself and dismisses him.

Loki leaves with the unpleasant sensation that he has gone through a test he wasn't meant to pass.

He is no longer surprised by and only occasionally ashamed of the hatred he sometimes feels toward his father. But he's not yet so full of it that he thinks this was a trap meant to kill him, and so he hits closer to the truth: Odin wanted to show Frigga that her methods for restraining Thor were insufficient, and that it was time to return to his own before they lost both their sons.  
  
  
Loki thinks of Thor's smile many times that day, and that night, and over the week that follows. By the end of the month, the nightmares start to slow.

He thinks about Thor's smile on the bridge, and his grin over the rim of the buckler, and how his brother deliberately hounded Loki to the one place in Asgard besides their father's presence where he feels his weakest; and he thinks that he's been lied to about what berserkers are.

Because it was his mother who told him, Loki doesn't assume it was intentional. Midgard and Asgard are separate realms, and information between the two is inevitably confused. Thor may show many traits of a berserker rage as mortals describe it, but that awareness, that cunning--those things are mentioned nowhere in the records.

So either there are aspects missing from visitors' reports on Midgard, or else a berserk Aesir is something very different.

~

When his father enters the Odinsleep Loki nearly sinks to his knees in relief.

He's still too young to rule in the interim--still more boy than man--so Frigga holds the throne as regent until the All-father wakes again. Loki's daily lessons ease to something he can manage while still having a smattering of time to himself, and he pours the new freedom into resuming his study of magic and to scouring the library for any additional descriptions of berserkers.

He finds nothing, and decides at last that the only way to counter for the loss in translation is to visit the humans' realm himself.

He almost doesn't ask permission and just goes. But midway to the Bifrost, Loki realizes how much easier it will be to force Heimdall to do what he wants if he has the All-mother's authorization.

She grants it, but not without a debate.

"I don't like that you're going alone," his mother says, seated on the throne and studying him with concern. Loki stands on the upper steps to match her height, bringing him higher on the dais than he's ever been before. Even when he and Thor played in the empty throne room as children, Thor was the one who would climb right onto the seat itself while Loki stayed low enough that he could take off if anyone entered abruptly. "Surely there are some friends who could join you?"

There are not. Loki has acquaintances; he has gods he's observed in the training arena who he's considering for future bodyguards, and there are a few in particular with affably sharp wits that he might make councilors one day, if he still likes them by then. But he does not have friends. He is too aware of his position as crown prince, and too aware of the many Aesir who see it first when looking at him, to make friends. 

But these aren't things he intends to say to his mother. Her good opinion is important to him, and Loki suspects his way of thinking is colder than she would like.

So instead he says, "Thor is my brother, and my responsibility."

He tugs on the new armor recently fitted for him since his last growth spurt. "I'm only going to watch them for a little while. There's no need to drag others down there, too."

"Visiting Midgard is rarely considered a burden by most of our people," Frigga says with a small smile. It fades after a moment; but at last she nods.

"Very well," she agrees, settling back into the throne and shifting Gungnir on her lap. "I'll tell Heimdall to find a berserker among them. When he does, he'll send you nearby to observe." She folds her hands over the spear. "Please be careful."

"Of course," Loki agrees, and bows. "Thank you, Mother."  
  
  
One of the Einherjar summons him to Heimdall the next evening. Loki sends the warrior away at the edge of the bridge and walks slowly and steadily along its center until he reaches the end.

Heimdall describes the appearance of the mortal berserker he's found and tells him the current name of the part of Midgard he'll be in, but otherwise they don't speak. Soon Loki is flung through the Bifrost to land hard on mortal soil.

It's just past dawn on Midgard. Loki wraps himself carefully in several spells of intangibility and invisibility before adding another one for translation. Then he crosses into the homestead he landed by.

He finds the berserker and spends the day dogging the man's trail. Loki steals curds from the farm's storeroom and a boiled sheep from the kitchen when he grows hungry, and snickers when he overhears several slaves yelling and trying to lay the blame for the theft on each other.

Other than that, nothing interesting happens. The berserker appears to be the brother or guest of the farm's owner, and all the humans treat him the way the royal servants treat Thor: cautiously, with respect, and by staying at as great a distance as possible.

When evening falls, Loki filches a round of cheese from the storeroom and leaves the farm. He shakes off the concealment spells and puts on a glamour in their place, making himself look different and older, and eats the cheese and walks until he comes to a new homestead.

Its owner is suspicious and wary of his night arrival, but Loki explains how his horse broke a leg jumping a rockslide and that he's lost his way in the dark. He gives the name of the farmer who's housing the berserker--knowledge he gleaned during the slaves' attempts to explain the lost food--and asks for a guide to his house: he was supposed to arrive yesterday.

When the farmer still hesitates, Loki removes his torque and offers it as payment. He has to pry it loose with his knife while making the glamour look as though he's simply removing it from his throat, and thinks as he does that he'll need to have the armor redone _again_ now; but the bribe works.

The farmer gives the torque to his wife and orders a few people to see to the rockslide when it's light, and then takes a lantern and leads him to the stables.

With the horses, they reach the farm in short order. Loki tells the farmer to take them to the barn and wipe them down, and says he'll return shortly--he's sure his host will want to thank the man for helping him reach here. Then he sets the barn on fire.

When the slaves come out of their sleeping area at the noise of the animals, they see the farmer running from the barn and toward the road. They rouse the rest of the household, and soon the berserker and several others are on the man's trail. Loki follows off to the side.

The berserker runs swifter than the others, and soon has the farmer tackled. They're at blows by the time the rest catch up; Loki leans against a boulder a short distance away and observes.

The berserker's brother/host/friend drags him off and starts barking questions at the man. Loki scowls as he realizes his translation spell has worn away--it probably began to unravel when he concentrated so much on the torque's glamour. His fingers twitch as he starts to recast it; and then he shrugs and resumes watching. Words are not his concern tonight.

The berserker has calmed slightly, but he's still tense, pacing and growling as checked violence snakes through him. It almost reminds Loki of how Thor changed between attacking his trainer and chasing him, but it's not exactly the same.

Then again, they're humans--it wouldn't be. Loki's eyes narrow as they flick between the berserker and the man who pulled him back. He thinks about returning to the farm until he's learned exactly what they are to each other, so he can find out how the latter's managed to gain power over the former.

The second farmer is arguing vehemently and angrily with the berserker's keeper, and Loki can tell from his gestures that the man is describing him. The berserker's keeper sounds scornful; the berserker himself is growing more agitated.

When the farmer tries once more to plead his case, the berserker snarls and snatches the man's lantern, throwing it to the side as he yells at him. It breaks on the rocks and for a brief moment Loki is visible before the candle gutters, the altered color of his hair catching in the light.

_Damn_ , he thinks, and flees.

The moon is less than half-full and the sky is cloudy. It was convenient when he was hiding from the crowd, a hassle when walking to the second farm, and dangerous now. The ground is rocky and unstable, sliding beneath his boots if he tries to run too fast--but he has to go fast, because the berserker runs swifter than the others.

The berserker soon has him trapped. Loki grips a throwing knife and drops his glamour abruptly as he turns, hoping to startle the man. But he doesn't count on it with the light so poor, and throws the knife without hesitation.

It catches the berserker in the shoulder. The man grunts as the impact jerks him back--and then he's barreling towards Loki again.

After all the times he's seen his brother fall into his rages, Loki isn't surprised. But the brief delay gives him time to draw his dagger.

The man is a berserker; but he is a man, and Loki is an Aesir. The mortal doesn't have a chance.

By the time the other humans reach the spot, Loki has stabbed the berserker in the throat and the eye and limped away to hide among the boulders. He stays still as the men scour the area and finally gather up the corpse and depart.

Loki remains where he is after they're gone, shakily trying to decide whether to call for Heimdall or to go back to the farm to determine the connection between the berserker and his keeper. It's information he wants--but he'll have to recast all his spells, and the invisibility one won't hide his blood once he moves too far from it. His side and hip ache from the gash along them; his hands won't stop shaking long enough to cast a spell to begin healing it or even to cut up his cape and tie it around the wound.

_Thor should be here_ , Loki thinks, as he keeps one hand pressed to his bleeding side and the other tight around his dagger. He shouldn't be doing this alone. Thor should be here with him, even though he knows Thor couldn't be here, Thor is the reason **he** is here. _Thor should be here._

The sky lights up in the colors of the rainbow, briefly startling all the human beings in the area whose lives Loki has just extensively meddled in. And then he's being pulled through the Bifrost back to home.

He stumbles over his feet when he arrives and crashes painfully on the metal floor. Loki manages to shove himself back up before Heimdall can humiliate him by coming over and offering to help. 

Loki sways slightly as he braces a hand to his side, and spots his dagger lying where he dropped it on the ground. He glares and considers leaving it there and sending someone to get it later, because he's sure there's no way he can bend over to retrieve it without falling on his face.

Heimdall picks up the dagger and hands it to Loki along with a healing stone. "You should go to the healers' quarters," is all he says.

"It's nothing," Loki mutters as he struggles to shove the dagger into its sheath, remembering only after it's mostly in that he didn't clean it first.

Heimdall raises an eyebrow. "I hope you won't expect your warriors to say the same thing. You'll run out of them."

Loki bares his teeth and stalks from the room.

His breath leaves him as soon as he exits the false safety of the sphere and stands on the bridge itself. His eyes are watery with pain even with the healing stone pressed to his side, and the bridge wavers in his sight. Loki draws a ragged breath, reminds himself angrily that Heimdall is behind him and no doubt watching, and then starts walking slowly along the Bifrost, trying to keep as close to what looks like the center as possible.

He's less than a third of the way across it before he hears someone running up, but he can't raise his eyes from the bridge to look--if he does he'll falter, he'll stumble and fall off the edge, he knows he will. Whoever's running is probably already shaking it. The only thing that keeps Loki from dropping to crawl along the rainbow more safely is the vague knowledge that he won't be able to endure Heimdall seeing him like that once the pain and panic clouding his head are gone.

The runner stops short in front of him, somehow not bringing the bridge down around them both, and Loki doesn't have to lift his face to know it's Thor. He made fun of his new armor-- _'It's not **arm** or if it doesn't cover your arms!'_\--just days ago.

Thor snarls angrily, starts to speak, and then cuts off. He hefts Loki into his arms and begins striding back to Asgard.

Loki presses the healing stone harder to his wound and grips the shoulder edge of Thor's armor tightly, certain now that the bridge is going to crack beneath their weight, that it's going to shatter from Thor's furious, stomping tread. He's not sure whether he feels worse because Thor is going to fall to death with him, or better because he won't be alone.

Thor gets them off of the Bifrost as soon as possible, and Loki finally lets out his breath as the glassy noise of the bridge under his boots. turns to the thud of metal and stone

"Who did this?!" his brother demands, when they're far from the edge and the roar of the water is muffled by Asgard's walls. A touch of hesitation creeps into his tone as he asks, lower, "...Heimdall?"

"No one," Loki mumbles, because he doesn't want to talk. Thor's angry strides are jostling him; all he wants to do is clench his jaw so he doesn't start whining or crying like a child.

" _ **Who did it**?_ " Thor growls, and Loki shudders reflexively. The healing stone slips from his hand.

Thor stops, and then has to crouch and shift Loki around before he can reach out to pick it up. Loki shudders again; Thor's arm is so tight around his shoulders that he feels pinned, trapped worse now than when the men were searching the rocks near him. He could hurt _them_ , but Thor is stronger than him.

\--Thor is his brother. Loki can't hurt him. All he can do is run from him, and right now he would never make it far enough to hide before Thor catches him.

"Loki," Thor says quietly. He's trying to make his voice gentler, trying to rein his anger in, but Loki can feel the tension in his arms and doesn't know how long it will last. "Who did it?"

"A human," he answers, hoping the information will be enough to make Thor stop. "Some mortal from Midgard. No one."

Thor tucks the healing stone against his side, and Loki grips it again as Thor rolls carefully back to his feet. But instead of starting forward, his brother glances over his shoulder. "Where were you? What did he look like?"

Loki snorts. "He's already dead," he replies, irritated that Thor thinks him incapable of _that_ little. "Desecrating a corpse is a bit much, don't you think?"

Thor looks back at him. "You killed him?"

" **Yes** ," Loki snaps.

Thor exhales hard, and sounds abruptly relieved when he asks, "Then it isn't all yours?"

Loki blinks and glances down at himself, and finds in Asgard's sunlight he's covered with more blood than he realized. It's still seeping from his wound, but there's more across his chest, and more still that he now feels on his throat and face.

Heimdall's comments seem slightly less sardonic. Slightly.

"No," Loki says. "No. It--just my leg." He reaches up and starts scrubbing the dried blood from his face. "When I stabbed him it splattered. From his throat. I forgot. It--"

Thor shifts him again, then catches his hand and pulls it away before Loki can rub his face any harsher.

"As long as he's dead," Thor says, calmer now. The tension in his body is gone as he starts forward again.

"Yes," Loki answers, or agrees. Then he slumps against Thor and lets himself stop worrying about anything except keeping the healing stone to his wound.

This is the way it's supposed to be. Thor is supposed to be the one who looks out for him, and Loki is supposed to be the one who gets them both out of trouble. Thor should have been there.

_'I miss you,' Thor said, smiling up at him with eyes like a monster in his dreams._

Loki shudders violently and drops the stone once more.

By the time Thor crouches and picks it up again, Loki's pretending to be unconscious. By the time they reach the palace, he actually is.  
  
  
When he wakes in one of the healers' rooms, Loki stretches very carefully to test his side, and then rolls over and finds Thor sitting on the floor, slouched against the wall near his bed, asleep.

Furious, Loki pushes to a sitting position and yells for servants, the guards, anyone to come to him. When they do--rapidly--he orders them to bring a chair for Thor, and a second bed with the kind of pillows and linen befitting a royal son, and enough food for them both.  
  
  
The next time he goes to Midgard, he takes a healing stone and three of Idunn's apples with him. His armor is repaired, with a new gold torque from his mother to replace the one he gave away.

The time after that, he takes two healing stones, more knives, and as many apples as he can charm from Idunn before getting kicked out of her garden.  
  
  
When he returns from his fourth trip to Midgard, Thor is waiting in the sphere for him. Loki is still short of breath from running hard until Heimdall opened the Bifrost and wants nothing more than a long, hot bath and a good meal; but he waits to scowl at Thor until after they're off the bridge. "What is it? I'm tired."

"How many more times are you going to leave?" Thor asks.

Loki considers, and then shrugs. "I don't know. I'm not learning as much as I hoped," he answers. He doesn't say more; Thor doesn't know the reason why he keeps visiting Midgard.

"Take me with you next time."

He snorts without even thinking about it. " _You_ won't help. I'm not **trying** to get into fights."

Thor grabs his elbow. Loki jerks to a halt, twisting around to stare at him.

"Please," his brother says quietly. "Don't leave me alone here. They hate me."

"They don't--" Loki scowls hard. "Who said that?"

"No one has to say it," Thor replies. "I remember how things used to be." He's still gripping Loki's arm hard as he demands, " _Promise_ you'll take me with you next time."

Loki shifts uncomfortably, but Thor doesn't let go. Loki glances at his face, sees the anxious look in Thor's eyes, and then looks away and swallows.

"All right," he agrees with a nod. "Next time, you'll come with me."

Thor exhales, and then smiles and releases his arm and hugs his shoulders tightly. "Thank you."

A few moments later, when Loki is still tense under his touch, Thor pulls away.

A second after that he steps to the side before starting forward. "Thank you," he says again, lower this time.

Loki hesitates before beginning to walk as well.

He catches up to his brother and shifts over enough that they're side-by-side, his arm brushing Thor's occasionally as Loki matches his stride. Thor's smile flickers back onto his face.  
  
  
He knows Thor will hold him to his promise, so he never goes back to Midgard.

The first few days Thor is restless, clearly anticipating their trip; and then he starts to get suspicious as Loki continues to remain in Asgard for much longer than he's stayed before; and then he becomes angry. One night at dinner he and Thor get into a kicking match under the table, keeping it from their mother until the moment Thor tosses his cup at Loki's head.

Loki manages to make it intangible in time for it to sail harmlessly through him. But he forgets about the milk inside, and it splatters all over his face and clothes. He throws his plate at Thor in response, and then their mother drags them apart and reminds them that brothers should not treat each other this way and that royal sons must set good examples for their subjects, and sends them to their rooms.

She expects them to obey, and doesn't send the Einherjar to escort them as Odin would have.

Loki breaks away from Thor as soon as they're out of the dining hall and races along the hallways and through small, distant corridors in a back route to his rooms. He hears Thor chasing behind him; but Loki's latest growth spurt has given him longer legs, and his brother can't catch up before Loki's scrambled out a window and down the wall to his balcony. Loki activates the spell that seals the open entryways in case of rain or attack and then wrenches his curtains shut.

He hears Thor outside his door later; but it's locked too. His brother knocks and knocks and swears and then eventually departs for his own room, ultimately an obedient son.

~

Her son is late coming to her rooms, and Frigga can hear him scuffing his feet all down the hall when he does arrive.

She glances past the balcony one last time--the rain is coming less and less lately, and the stone is hot and the air shockingly dry--and then turns with a smile. Thor tries to echo it, but continues to trudge through her doorway as if approaching a gallows tree.

"If they taste that bad, I can add honey," Frigga tells him. She pauses when Thor shakes his head, and then asks, "Is that why you've been pouring them out?"

He jerks his gaze up to stare, clearly surprised. Frigga resists the urge to smile at the childish disbelief, and tilts her head and says, "My eyes do work, Thor."

He bites his lip and looks down, fidgeting where he stands. ". . . I'm sorry."

"Why were you doing it?"

Thor shifts again. "...I don't want to drink them."

Frigga lets out a small breath, and gestures for him to come closer. When he does, she smooths his bangs from his face. He no longer flinches at her touch, but he does still remain tense for a breath under it at first.

"Thor," she says, "you know why you need to."

"I know," he mutters.

When he doesn't say anything further but keeps scowling, she frowns. Frigga brushes his hair back again and gently prods, " _Why_ don't you want to drink them?"

She hopes to hear something about the taste, or at worst about stomachaches or headaches or dizziness. Those are small things, easily fixable: a change in ingredients, in amounts, and the problem will be resolved.

But Thor doesn't answer for a long time. He just stands before her with his fists clenched; and she begins to worry that this will not be so easily concluded.

Finally, he looks up. "If someone cut off you or Loki's hands, you wouldn't be able to do magic anymore, right?" her son asks.

". . . It would be difficult," Frigga agrees carefully.

"That's what it feels like," Thor tells her. He points at the cup sitting on the rim of her pool, his mouth drawn down in unhappiness. "When I drink these it's...I feel like there's cloth in my ears, and like someone's...."

He rubs aggravatedly at his face. "It's like I'm getting wrapped up in a curtain so I can't feel anything. The universe is cut off from me. Or I'm being cut out of it." He looks up again. "I hate it."

"Ah," Frigga murmurs.

Rain is coming to Asheim less and less; the farmers are starting to worry about their crops.

She begins to wonder if there is a solution at all.

Then she shakes the thought away, and reaches out and strokes his hair. "I think I understand."

Frigga cups his face and makes sure he's looking her in the eyes--he never met Odin's gaze by the time her husband gave up and still rarely does, and she won't allow the same thing to happen between them. "I do, Thor. If I lost my magic...." She shakes her head. "I would hate it too. It would be almost unbearable."

The words are true, and make what she has to say next all the harder. Frigga draws a deep breath and rubs his cheek with a thumb. "But, Thor.... You don't want to hurt anyone, do you?"

He drops his gaze and tilts his head down. Frigga lets him, but doesn't draw back.

Soon, Thor shakes his head. He takes a long breath before squaring his shoulders, and then he turns and reaches for the cup.

Frigga rests a hand on his, and he pauses.

"There are many kinds of bravery," she tells him. "Some never come up in songs or poems; but they exist all the same." She squeezes his hand. "I am very proud of you, my son."

A faint smile flickers over his mouth, and he squeezes back.

"I'll try making half-doses," Frigga tells him. "And if you still feel uncomfortable but you can hold back with those, I'll reduce them after a while, too. I'll try my best, if you'll try yours." She smiles. "Is it a promise?"

Thor nods solemnly.

"I promise," he says, and forces down the drink.  
  
  
Frigga tries making the potions less strong, and watches her eldest son fight hard not to give in to the chaos that thrums in his blood. She watches her second oldest continue to be trapped in a repeating pattern of being drawn to and then terrified and repelled by that same chaos; a pattern that Loki, for all his sharp, precocious insight, cannot seem to see and she cannot unravel. Not without harming something she suspects is in his nature.

It's always hard when gods are young. Their aspects change as they grow, making it tricky to determine what they're aligned to. Thor was easy: the rain, the lightning and thunder and wildness of storms, the abundance of the crops and land and the strength of warriors and farmers. Loki is harder.

He takes so well to magic that, though he has preferences, nothing seems ultimately impossible for him. He lies with ease, but he jokes and tells stories with the same smoothness. He crafts poetry with ever-increasing swiftness and complexity, though he favors insulting verses more than she can condone. He endures boredom very poorly, to the detriment of those around him. He loves her and Thor, and tries with a strenuous effort that saddens her to care for Odin that much as well.

She has her suspicions what he will grow to be the god of, and tries to encourage the positive aspects over the negative ones.

But at the root of it all is chaos again: kin to Thor's, but of a different kind. Thor's is tied to untamable nature itself, Loki's to the equally unrestrained urges of those who crave cleverness and fun too much.

Frigga would be tempted to consult a seeress, if prophecy were able to speak about what might have been instead of solely about what will be. It's not unusual for more than one god to be attuned to chaos, especially if it manifests in differing forms; but the fact that it's two under her own roof....

She has always been careful not to look at her other sons. She pays Balder precisely as much attention as she does the other nobles' children, to keep from marking him out through either too much or too little affection. She's never seen Hod since the twins were separated after the seeress present in her chamber finally recovered her tongue long enough to speak their birth-prophecy: that Balder would die at his brother's hand, and so usher in Ragnarök.

Hod was sent to live with a stonecutter's family at the far edge of Asheim. Balder was kept closer in the heart of Asgard, so Odin could retain an eye on his safety. Both acts were carried out by the proxies of proxies, to eliminate any trace of their heritage.

It was difficult to give away the first children she bore before even a day passed; but she is a queen as well as a mother, and Asgard and its realm and its people must come first.

She knows nothing of what Hod is like, but the few times she's studied Balder she's seen no trace of chaos in him. It wouldn't be unreasonable--he shares Odin's blood the same as Thor--but in his nature he seems to almost be chaos's opposite.

That is not unreasonable either; Thor was born first. But it still raises questions.

If this is not in their nature--if two blood-sons raised separately are different but two foster-sons raised together are similar--is it the raising that's the cause?

Would they both still be like this, even if Loki remained in Jotunheim and Thor were bred in Asgard as their sole heir?

And if so, can she still change things? Is there still time enough to alter their paths so the chaos in them stays only a small aspect of their selves, and not one that could eventually overwhelm and drown all the others?

Could she, at the very least, limit the way it feeds between them and grows stronger in each as it does?

Could she do it without harming them?

But prophesies cannot answer 'what ifs.' And even if they could, time only moves forward to its inevitable end. She can do nothing now beyond what she's already trying, and she would change nothing in the past.

Frigga knows that if a seeress _could_ tell her what might have been, it still wouldn't answer her questions. There would never be a way to view potential differences between Thor and Loki in a world where Odin didn't bring the infant back from Jotunheim: in such a world as that, Loki would be dead from exposure and starvation and comparison impossible.

She has already lost two sons, but she still has two sons. To lose a third to such a wretched death is not something she could accept.

So Frigga watches her sons, and does not watch another noble couple's child, and pays no attention whatsoever to a simple stonecutter's boy. She holds to her hopes, and tries something else each time Thor loses a fight against his violence and sparks another cycle of fear and restlessness between himself and Loki. She revises and reworks her spells and potions again and again and again, in hopes of finding, at last, the solution.

~

Their father wakes from the Odinsleep a few days later, and they gather to greet him.

Loki stands in the room and expects to feel relief. The last time Odin did this he was a baby, so he's never truly seen it before. He visited a few times as his father slept and was disconcerted by the absolute stillness around him, by the way he never moved once in the depths of his slumber. He knows that the Odinsleep isn't harmful; but still, after what he observed, Loki assumes a good son would be relieved to see his father awake, hale and hardy.

He stands in the room and watches his mother sit beside the bed as Odin slowly drinks a goblet of wine, and feels resignation and frustration instead.

These past weeks he's had more freedom than he can remember since Thor turned berserker. He could travel to Midgard as he pleased, study magic as he wished; even the diplomacy and history and war tactics he continued to learn weren't so unpleasant, because he wasn't being constantly tested on them. Even when he **was** quizzed, his mother didn't look down on him if he forgot anything. For the first time since Thor turned berserker, Loki didn't feel as though he were walking a knife's edge, always a breath away from being found lacking.

Thor is in the room too, but Loki can't see him. For the first time since Odin fell asleep, Thor is standing behind Loki instead of at his side. Thor has made sure he has a clear route to the door, and that Loki is between him and their father.

This isn't who his brother is supposed to be.

He isn't supposed to be afraid, or turning to Loki for protection; it's supposed to be the other way around. For the first time since Odin fell asleep, Thor feels like a stranger again.

Loki's fingers curl at his side. _If you would just stay asleep_ \--

He shoves the thought down hard, his eyes wide, shaken by the chasm of loathing that's opened inside him. There is being frustrated and angry, and then there's being **treasonous**.

. . . But if he _would_ just stay asleep....

Asgard has not collapsed because its king was absent. The Aesir obey the All-mother as devotedly as they do the All-father, and the Einherjar and the Valkyries and the warriors are all ready for any threat that may arise. In the very worst case, if a battle were turning so poorly, he and Thor could ride out despite their youth: no enemy would last too long if Thor was turned loose on them, and Loki could make sure he doesn't harm any of their own and that he isn't too injured afterward. Asgard doesn't need Odin to remain the golden realm it is. And their family would be so much better off without--

Frigga brushes Odin's hair back from his forehead as he draws the cup away from his lips, and he turns to her with a smile. Loki watches them exchange a few words, too low and soft to be heard where he's standing, and feels that imagined future crumble away.

His parents love each other. To lose her husband would bring his mother tremendous pain, and Loki cannot think of a worse thing to do to her than that.

He can protect Thor himself, if he has to.

After all, he only has one brother. This should be much easier than defending an entire realm, and he'll have to be able to do that one day, too.

There are guards standing inside their father's room. He and Thor are at a significant distance from the dais where Odin's bed sits, while their mother is right next to him. Loki glances once around the room and considers how things could appear to outsiders, and then reaches back and grabs Thor's wrist.

Thor resists at first when Loki pulls him forward. He drags his feet against the marble when he does start walking; but in the end he follows. His arm is tense and trembling slightly in Loki's grip.

Loki lets go once they've reached their father's bedside, and then sits opposite their mother and makes sure that his body is still blocking Thor. He smiles as he rests an arm on the bed's rim and says, "It's good to see you again, Father."

A few moments later, Thor steps forward and kneels beside him--but he settles on Loki's right, farther rather than closer to Odin's hands. "Yes," he agrees solemnly.

Odin smiles again and reaches out to touch Loki's head, Thor's hand. Neither of them flinch; Loki keeps smiling. "You as well, my sons," he answers, before turning back to his wife.

~

Things do not return to as bad as they were before his father entered the Odinsleep.

Loki suspects his mother has petitioned on his behalf. The pace of his studies remains as it was, and his free time is not stripped away. He continues studying magic, treading deeper and deeper into the library for more advanced spells and potions and charms, and striking up associations with some of Asgard's sorceresses; but he no longer travels.

He's not explicitly barred from it, but making the request to his father is very different from making it to his mother. And since he's sure Heimdall will deny him use of the Bifrost without the All-father's permission, Loki doesn't bother trying. Besides, he's still beholden to his promise to Thor: he can't go to Midgard without him.

Technically, when Loki considers it, since he wasn't smart enough to specify where they would travel to, he can't go _any_ where without Thor. The realization is a sharp reminder to be very, very careful about the vows he gives out, even if Thor looks at him as though Loki has to say yes because there's no one else who will otherwise.

So he takes the time he used to devote to leaving Asgard and spends it traveling around Asheim instead.

If he's to eventually rule this realm, he must know it, after all. The logic is sound, and Loki soon finds his lessons are eased further so that one afternoon a week is given over to him completely, though it comes with his father's request that he spend it learning terrain instead of magic.

Loki acquiesces in order to keep the freedom, though some days--when his head aches from trying to work out a complicated and compelling spell late into the night when he should be asleep--the obedience leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

Sometimes he takes Thor out riding with him, when he runs into his brother on his way out. Sometimes he takes Fandral and occasionally Volstagg, as he continues trying to decide whether he likes the gods enough to make them part of his future council or whether his mind is clouded because he's starving for humor. He never lets Thor join those times; if he _does_ decide to keep the pair in the future, Loki can't risk his brother scaring them off before he has a solid hold on them.

Most times he goes alone, especially if he's walking the city.

It's the easiest way for him to discover new shortcuts and back corridors and alternate routes. On his own, he doesn't have to waste time explaining that he wants to try this alley instead of that one, or take these stairs just because they're new, or climb over that wall because it's a quicker way to the street below. He just goes.

The downside is that no one's there to boost him up if the street proves to be a dead end and the wall taller than he first thought, or to be tripped in front of him as a scapegoat if the stairs happen to lead into the back of some god's home or shop. There's no one to cackle and run away with him while yelling taunts if the alley turns out to contain surprised lovers, and no one to shield him if they start throwing things.

There's no one to catch him if he slides on the rubble of an old and forgotten buttress at the back of the castle, and loses his footing and then his grip and falls through to land hard inside a hut reeking of sheep and manure.

The animals panic and stamp at his abrupt appearance, and Loki has to scramble up on a ledge to keep from being trampled beneath them. His ankle aches; there's a half-patched hole in the ceiling, now broken wider.

_There are no sheep pens under the buttress_ , Loki thinks dumbly, watching the animals strain against the gate and batter at the wall. A moment later he hears men shouting.

It's men, not gods--he recognizes this strain of Midgardian dialect. Baffled, Loki throws a sturdy glamour over himself to change his clothes and his hair just before the men storm into the shed.

The ledge gives him no place to hide, and the hole in the ceiling is too close to the men and too hard to reach with the rioting animals. By the time two of the men get them calm, the third has waded over and hauled him off the ledge and out of the shed.

The realm outside is definitely Midgard. Loki didn't think to cast a translation spell along with the glamour and now can't with the man twisting his arm behind his back, and while he recognizes the dialect he's not proficient yet at speaking it. So he plays dumb instead, and pretends he's mute.

It earns him blows as the men accuse him of being a thief and demand he say where he's from. Loki grits his jaw and looks at the three and memorizes their faces, and shakes his head and continues to pantomime until they at last start grumbling among themselves.

Eventually two take off toward a farm in the valley below. The third keeps his grip on Loki's wrist and pushes him down to the ground to wait. Loki drops his free arm as if to catch his balance, and pulls out one of his knives hidden by the glamour.

He slashes open the man's calf above his boot. When the mortal drops to his knee with a shout, Loki stabs him in the throat.

There's more shouting down the hillside as the others start running back toward him. Loki breaks away from the dying man and darts into the shed.

The sheep get restless again when he enters, but Loki shoves them aside until he reaches the hole in the roof. He has to jump twice before he can get a grip that doesn't crumble under his fingers, and then he hauls himself through.

He finds himself not on the roof of the shed but on the lip of a gap at the bottom of the crumbled buttress.

Unsure if the men can follow, Loki climbs his way up and heaves himself off the rubble and onto sturdy ground. Then he crouches and waits, knife in hand.

But the mortals don't follow. He can't even hear them, despite the short distance between him and the narrow hole at the bottom of the buttress.

Finally, Loki shoves a large rock over the gap to cover as much of it as possible, and starts limping his way back to the palace.

_What was **that**?_ he wonders.  
  
  
He's nearly to the healers' quarters to have his ankle seen to when Thor finds him. His brother starts to jog toward him--but then he stops short and stares at Loki. A breath later, he narrows his eyes.

Loki tried to wipe off all the blood before he came around to the front of the palace, but he must have missed some. He looks over his chest and hands.

"You broke your promise," Thor accuses, his voice quiet with betrayal. "You said you would take me with you."

Loki blinks, startled; and then he draws a slow breath as he realizes Thor's right. He didn't intend to, but he went to Midgard and left him behind.

He's disturbed that he doesn't feel too ashamed about becoming an oath-breaker.

But, as he looks at the unhappiness on Thor's face, Loki does feel a little guilty that the oath he's broken is the one to his brother.

But then, it isn't as though he did it on purpose. "What are you talking about?" Loki scoffs. "I haven't gone anywhere."

"Quit lying," Thor says harshly.

Loki scowls. "Ask Heimdall," he retorts. "I haven't been near the Bifrost."

Thor gives him a distrustful look. "Heimdall said he couldn't see you," he replies. "That's why I was looking."

Loki's eyes widen and he rocks back on his feet before he can catch himself.

"What?" he manages. "What do you mean?"

"He said he couldn't see you," Thor repeats. "Where did you go?"

Loki takes a long moment to consider the implications of that statement. Then he realizes Thor's still waiting for an answer, and shakes his head.

"I've been here," Loki says. "Honestly, Thor, how could I leave Asgard without crossing the Bifrost?"

"Then how come Heimdall couldn't see you?" he demands.

Loki huffs. "Maybe he got a speck of dust in his eye," he says in annoyance. "Or he just wants to get me in trouble. How can I possibly leave Asgard without using the Bifrost?"

Thor keeps scowling long enough for Loki's ankle to twinge painfully as he shifts in aggravation.

But finally his brother has to concede defeat. There _shouldn't_ be a way.

"Where were you, then?" Thor asks as his shoulders drop. He doesn't come closer.

His brother always keeps his distance when he's trying to hold a check on his temper. If he's still standing back, then he's still suspicious.

Loki exhales shortly and starts forward.

"I got in an argument," he answers, holding out his hand. "Help me to the healers."

Thor only hesitates a moment before draping Loki's arm over his shoulders. Loki sighs in relief as the pressure on his ankle eases, and Thor begins guiding them forward.

"You don't get in 'arguments' with your fists," Thor grumbles, repeating one of their mother's most common admonishments.

Loki rolls his head up to lean it against his brother's shoulder and gives him a long, incredulous look.

" **You** don't get into arguments with your fists," Thor clarifies. Loki chuckles and lets his head drop forward again.

"Sometimes I do," he replies.

"Who was it?"

" _No_ ," Loki says with a shake of his head. "I'll fight my own battles, Brother. You would only make things worse."

"There's blood on your knife," Thor says lowly. He cups Loki's chin, tilting his head to examine his face. "Where else were you hit?"

Loki tries to pull away, and Thor tightens the grip on his arm sharply.

But he does release Loki's chin a moment later, after Loki wrenches harder to the side. Loki accepts the concession and stops fighting before he really begins to aggravate him.

"No, Thor," he says evenly. "I'm not telling you."

"I'll say I saw it from a distance," he replies, and for a moment Loki is so taken with the thought that his brother would not only attack an enemy for him, he would lie just to be given the chance to do so, that if his foes were Aesir Loki might have named them.

He's still young enough that he hasn't realized Thor knows how to tug on his strings the same way Loki knows how to manipulate his brother's.

But his foes are Midgardian, and Loki isn't going to reveal this newfound passage. Thor would forgive him for breaking the promise by accident--but Loki can always win him back later, and he has too much to gain if he keeps this secret now.

"No," he says with finality. "When you get in trouble, I get in trouble. And I get in even _more_ trouble when you're getting in trouble **for** me."

Thor hisses out a breath, but at last drops the subject.

He's sulking and sullen the rest of the way to the healers'. Loki stubbornly doesn't try to wheedle him out of it, because it means Thor will leave once he's gotten him to a bed and summoned a healer instead of coming back and waiting with him. As he hears his brother's footsteps thud down the corridor, Loki rolls onto his side and covers his mouth with a hand, tilting his face into the padding.

Heimdall couldn't see him.

_Heimdall couldn't see him._

Loki presses his hand harder over his mouth to muffle his laughter, and then winces when he scrapes his ankle against the edge of the bed.  
  
  
Not long after, Loki returns to Midgard through the gap. He goes to the farm in the valley and steals a bolt of scarlet cloth while its inhabitants sleep, and then carries it to the nearest neighboring homestead and tucks it away in the rafters there.

He goes back a month later and finds that the theft has spiraled out into a feud. Loki waits until dusk, then casts a glamour to make himself appear as a pretty woman and lures away one of the men who hit him. He leaves the corpse unburied by the other farm and departs once more.

When he returns again after a few weeks, the double insult has caused the feud to draw blood. The remaining man who struck him is among the dead.

Loki feels sufficiently vindicated and leaves the farms to their future without further meddling. He drives the sheep out of the shed, splashes oil along the walls and thatch, and then hauls himself through the still half-repaired hole in the roof before lighting a torch and shoving it against the closest wall.

Just to be safe, he climbs up and free of the buttress while the shed burns. Loki lingers by the spot, pretending he's watching birds wheeling in the sky in case anyone sees him, and notes that he can't smell smoke.

When he climbs into the rubble for a final time, he finds that the gap now reveals another layer of stone half an arm's length down.

Loki paces and prods the area for hours until he thinks he understands. The air within the gap still feels odd, spongy and giving under his fingertips if he pushes with enough intent; but the hole in the roof on the other side is obviously gone, burnt to ruins with the rest of the shed. The instability in the layer between the two realms is still there, but now that their sides no longer match, it isn't enough to create a passage.

Loki thinks that it's an interesting theory, and then wonders whether there are any other weak spots in the realm that can be exploited.  
  
  
He begins taking sheets of paper and charcoal with him as he roams. Whenever he tumbles onto or into or down through another pathway, he sketches the places he finds on the other sides and brings the drawings back as references until he discovers a map or description or illustration in the library that tells him where he's been. Then he burns the sketches and starts over.

Over time, he finds all the cracks between Asgard and elsewhere, all those slippery little gaps that were missed in the universe's creation. Or if not, he's at least found routes into all the other realms, even if the one to Muspelheim is so dangerous as to be useless and the one into Hel he has no intention of exploring further. He doesn't know how much luck he used up just scrabbling back through the path before he was sensed in that corpse-grey wasteland, but it was probably a few decades' worth.

Lying in his bed at night, Loki draws this new map out in his head and wonders if he's the only one who knows of it.

Surely Asgard's enemies would have used the openings by now, if they knew about them. Surely Asgard's kings would have sealed them up, if they did.

Sometimes he thinks he should tell his father about the pathways so Odin can do exactly that. But the threat of the loss of his freedom to travel, and the obligation to have to use the Bifrost and be beholden to Heimdall and under that god's sight again once he can, holds him back every time.

After all, if he weren't the only one to know of the pathways, surely _someone_ would have used or closed them by now.

And if he **is** the only one, there's no harm in things remaining this way for a little longer.

~

Eventually, his parents tell him the truth.

Loki remembers the precise cause. He made some off-hand, derogatory comment about the Jotnar, because it's what Thor would have said in the circumstances if Thor were the same person he used to be, and he did it because most of the time the only way Loki can be the son he feels he's expected to be is by trying to be the son he thinks Thor would have been.

He doesn't remember the comment itself; it was meaningless, the same kind of thing that's said casually by all the Aesir save Heimdall and his parents and the few ladies-in-waiting and councilors who are closest to them. It should have been nothing.

But it made his mother pause, and frown, and start to bite her lip.

Loki was surprised by her reaction, but then thought he understood. "I know we have treaties," he promised her with a grin. "I wouldn't say it to one of their envoys."

"Ah," his mother murmured; but the sound was still wrong. Loki frowned again, but she excused herself before he could ask what the matter was.

A few hours later, he's summoned to her hall.

Later, he'll think it's no coincidence that that's the place where they told him. His mother's quarters are an oasis second only to his own rooms and the realms outside of Asgard entirely. They wanted him to feel safe, to feel confident in their affection despite the news; of course they brought him there to deliver it. He's grown old enough that he sees machinations everywhere now, and he studies them closely so he can spot the weak points and turn the levers to best benefit himself.

But at the time he's in no state of mind to catch the subtlety, because his thoughts are too full of horror and disgust and denial.

"Why are you lying to me?" Loki demands. His voice is shaking, making him sound weak, and he hates it: weakness is not the Aesir way. He's only giving credence to this falsehood. But he can't make it stop. "What did I do wrong?"

"It isn't a lie," his mother says, her hands folded tight around one of his, not letting him pull away. She has to lean over the central pool they're sitting around to maintain the contact; Loki has been shifting farther and farther from them.

Loki shakes his head hard.

"What did I do wrong?" he asks again, because he is _trying_ , he is trying so _hard_ to be the son he knows they want, the son Thor was supposed to be, and he knows it isn't enough but he didn't think he was so bad at it that he deserved this.

"It's not a lie," his father repeats, and Loki shivers. His voice is gentler than it's been in years, and that--that is the worst part of this. That's the part that makes it almost seem true.

He thrusts a shaking hand in front of them. "It has to be!" Loki insists. If his mother weren't gripping his other hand so tight he'd strip off his vambrace, rip off his sleeve, bare his whole flesh, whatever it takes to prove himself an Aesir. "Do I look like a--a--like them? It **isn't** true!"

His father sighs quietly, and reaches for a covered box on the floor before him. He gives Frigga a significant look as he pulls the cloth away; she returns it with a stern one and squeezes Loki's hand.

Loki's breath hitches when he sees the Casket of Ancient Winters.

His father reaches for his hand, and Loki wrenches loose of his mother's grasp and balls his fists against his chest, pulling back. He brings his legs up as well and hides behind them.

"No," Loki whispers. "Please."

His father pauses, and then turns his hand palm up and holds it out to him. "Do you believe us, then?" he asks.

Loki wants to say 'Yes' just so they won't prove it and he won't have to actually believe it; but he hesitates a breath too long. 

Odin catches his forearm and drags it out. Loki struggles to wrench free as his father tugs him forward and presses his hand to the Casket.

The shock of the cold sends a shudder wracking through him, and then Loki goes still as the discoloration spreads up his fingers. It soon consumes his knuckles and then his hand and wrist, and Odin quickly releases him before it reaches his grip.

Loki recoils, scrabbling across the floor and scattering the pillows as he puts distance between the Casket and Odin and himself. For a moment, the only the sound in the room is his shaky, rapid breathing as he stares wide-eyed at his ridged and blue-stained hand.

Frigga pushes away from the pool and comes around to kneel before him. She grasps Loki's hand tightly in her own before he can jerk back further.

Loki sees her wince at the chill. For a heartbeat her palms are too hot, burning his fingers between them. Then the heat fades as his skin returns to what it's supposed to be.

"This changes _nothing_ ," she says firmly. "Nothing, except that you shouldn't listen to comments like that. Things are always more complicated than we would like them to be, so enemies are denigrated and treated like they're all the same. But that doesn't make it true."

"You are our son," his father agrees, shifting to a knee before Loki and resting a hand on his shoulder. "Never doubt that."

His mother brushes his hair back from his forehead and kisses his temple. "Ever," she says.

Loki thinks of how she promised that Thor was still Thor, that he just had fits of anger they could cope with; and he thinks that she is wrong twice now.

No wonder his father is so easily exasperated by his failures, and so frustrated by the prospect of his ascendance to the throne. With Thor barred from the crown, his realm and his subjects and his lineage and name are falling into the lap of a son of one of his worst enemies. Odin must feel as though Laufey is laughing at him in triumph across the realms, all these years after his supposed defeat.

No wonder Thor stalks him so relentlessly in his rages--the berserker in him must have always sensed the truth.

Loki flinches and jerks his head up. "Thor," he gasps. "Does Thor know?"

His parents--Frigga and Odin--glance at each other.

"No," Frigga says. "We decided to wait until after you knew to tell him." She looks to the doorway, as if to summon a servant to bring Thor here.

"No!" Loki replies: too quickly, too desperately. "No. Don't--don't tell him." He swallows. "I will."

Frigga and Odin look at each other once more, clearly hearing the lie. Frigga smooths his hair as she and her husband confer silently with each other, and Loki holds still under the touch.

"...Very well," Odin agrees with a nod.

"When you're ready," Frigga says gently, tucking his hair behind his ear.  
  
  
Eventually they have to leave him. As the king and queen of the realm, there is forever something that needs their attention; Loki's always known this. There are reasons why he was once closer to Thor than to either of his parents, and reasons why, despite everything, that's changed little. Loki bows and extracts himself from their concern and does not make a fuss as they depart.

He returns to his rooms and locks the door behind him with the strongest spell he knows. He wrenches the balcony's curtains shut so roughly that one rips half off, and then he stumbles back to his bed and collapses against the footboard. Loki pulls his legs up to his chest and presses his face to his knees and screams and sobs until his throat is raw.  
  
  
Later he scrubs his face clean, and drinks almost a full pitcher of water until his voice is no longer so hoarse, and prepares to meet his family in the dining hall for the evening meal.

He never lets himself cry that openly or wretchedly again, because that kind of careless behavior is weakness.

And weakness is not the Aesir way.

~

He and Thor continue to grow, going from still-mostly-boys to almost-men, and they drift slowly apart, mainly by Loki's intent and despite Thor's efforts. They grow and discover new interests, and additional diversions, and others.

At least, Loki assumes Thor has too.

Even though the change to their inheritances has upended many of their roles, Thor is still his older brother. Loki subconsciously expects that by the time he stumbles into certain situations Thor has already learned how to navigate them.

(It was an unremarkable evening: Loki was in one of the drinking halls with Fandral, stringing out mock-insulting verses with the other god. One of the serving women joined in; she had a sharp wit but never went too far with it, and he was pleasantly inebriated enough to find the audacity and interruption amusing. Fandral eventually claimed he was out of verses and simply listened and laughed to the two of them. Later still he begged off, claiming that one of the ladies who'd just entered had previously departed his company under a terrible misunderstanding that he was duty-bound to correct. Loki snickered and waved him off, and started building a new poem with a sharp grin.

When he finished his next glass the server interrupted herself and clandestinely informed him that the hall's owner watered the wine to keep the prices low, but that if he wanted to come with her she knew where he kept the untampered bottles. They wouldn't be able to drink it in the hall--the owner would know and toss her out--but luckily their tavern had rooms above to house visitors. And she was fairly sure at least one was free that evening.

He was soon carrying two new cups up the back stairs while she kept a bottle hidden in the crook of her arm. Midway up, while he was still grinning over the petty mischief-making, she turned and tugged on his belt with a laughing chide that they had to be quiet so they weren't caught; and Loki realized with some surprise that he was being seduced.

It was an odd recognition. He was used to sensing those Aesir who tried to worm their way closer to him for favors or as a future store for when he was crowned king, but so far they'd only used flattery or gifts.

Loki glanced down at her fingers, still curled lightly in his belt as she peeked around the corner, and realized he was going to have to start guarding against an additional method.

He thought about pushing her away and leaving. If he hadn't realized what was going on, he didn't have the upper hand.

Then he changed his mind and let her sneak him into one of the rooms. 

After all, this was something else that needed learning for future use. And a nameless and enthused servant in one of his less-frequented taverns was a good enough means for study. Over his years Loki had been disarmed in enough spars and had enough spells disintegrate or mangle themselves to know that novices were rarely much good at the start.

They drank half the wine beforehand while still crafting verses, and then finished off the rest later in a poorly-considered effort to quell their thirst. Later still, when he was ready to leave, she pretended to be asleep.

Loki fumbled through what he knew of these situations as he redressed, trying to figure out the etiquette. He wondered if he should leave money, or at least pay for the room or the wine; and then he finally decided that he was the crown prince and she should be grateful. Novices might not be very good, but he didn't think he'd been terrible, either.

He went back down to look for Fandral, and found the other god had left word that he was departing for the evening for 'spirited conversation on certain differences between the sexes.' Loki snickered at the server's mimicry of Fandral's tone even though the pleasantness of the evening's wine was starting to fade to a leaden sleepiness, and left.

As the warm night breeze hit his skin, Loki looked to his side and thought how Thor should be there.

Thor should have been inside, to warn him about what he was getting into and to give him advice that Loki would have rolled his eyes at when told and then desperately relied on later. Thor should be at his side now, grilling and mocking him relentlessly as they walked home, teasing Loki about having finally grown up a bit more and describing every little thing he had done wrong until Loki jammed an elbow into his stomach and threatened to set his cloak on fire.

Or maybe Thor shouldn't be there. His brother must have been through this already, and Loki obviously wasn't with **him** unless he'd been blinder than he thought. Maybe this was something else meant to be done alone.

Maybe Thor shouldn't be there; but Loki wanted him there anyway.

He rubbed his temples and dragged his hair from his face, and began walking back to the palace.)

Loki assumes that Thor has found distraction in others too, because his brother has grown into a clearly appealing man.

He has plenty of opportunities to study the fact. Thor hates the distance Loki's put between them since learning what he truly is, so if Loki allows it his brother will sit or stand or walk right next to him, his arm propped on Loki's shoulder, kicking Loki's leg whenever he thinks Loki's looked away from him too long. Thor kicks often, so Loki spends a lot of time looking.

Thor still has his berserker fits, but they've decreased. Loki has grown better at spotting what might trigger them, and to escape their father's discipline and their mother's potions Thor has made himself abler at keeping his temper.

So most times Loki will let him come close, pleased by the familiarity and heat of his brother's presence and by Thor's casual, careless touches. Most times he lets it go on until they're eventually interrupted.

Some times it's too soon after he's had to drag Thor out of another rage without their father's help, when Loki still remembers how his muscles ached and his magic was drained and Thor relentlessly, methodically tried to corner and trap him. Those times, Loki won't let Thor come within arm's reach and throws spells of intangibility on himself if he tries.

Sometimes he won't mind if Thor is walking so close, his body tilted toward Loki as they talk--but then they'll pass some wall Loki had to scramble over or a set of stairs he nearly broke a leg racing down in order to escape. And then Loki pulls back, and pulls away, and remembers somewhere else he has to be.

Thor's started letting him go without a struggle, because otherwise Loki tricks his way loose eventually regardless and then avoids him all the longer for it. But he always feels Thor's gaze on him as he goes, until he finally turns a corner or ducks through a doorway and at last breaks free of his brother's sight.

But most of the time Thor's rages only hit when he grows too focused during sparring or when he feels those he loves are threatened. So usually Loki will let Thor come close and remain there.

If he feels like it and Thor asks, he'll put braids in his hair. He makes Thor read to him while he does, even though he occasionally has to interrupt to warn Thor not to read out spells or curses. Or to tell Thor to stop interrupting himself by criticizing the tactics in old battle histories.

Loki lets Thor wheedle him into the task, and tolerates the nuisance, because it makes his brother smile the way Thor never does for anyone else. As he reads Thor will slouch against Loki's chest or sprawl his arm and head across Loki's lap as though he has nowhere else he'd rather be.

Loki rolls his eyes at the excess, but indulges him anyway. He plays with Thor's hair and thinks how his brother has grown handsome and strong, and doesn't think any further about those thoughts.

Then two nights after his evening with the servant in the drinking hall, Loki dreams that Thor comes to his room and climbs onto his mattress, and kisses him similarly, and touches him similarly and in a few new ways; and when he wakes he trips over the sheets in his scramble to get out of the bed.

Loki stares at it wide-eyed, breathing hard. Then he fights down nausea and goes to the baths and nearly scalds himself scrubbing clean.

He avoids anything cold for two weeks straight and almost gives himself dehydration from dressing in too many layers, as if he could simply burn the jotun monstrosity out of himself. He eventually ceases when his mother starts looking concerned and he realizes that it's futile.

He avoids Thor for even longer, until Thor finally hunts him down and forces his presence back into his brother's life.

Loki gives in, as he inevitably does. He stopped fighting that battle long ago.  
  
  
With his only real preference impossible, Loki mainly chooses women when he feels an urge for sex. They do much of the work for him, coming to him and fawning and offering their own rooms and beds for use; and they're a topic that's safe with Fandral and Volstagg.

The few times he does select men, he takes care to pick only those who don't resemble Thor in any way. And he makes sure that their positions in society are precarious enough that they know they have nothing to gain and everything to lose if they talk afterward. He only spares the threat for the rare few that proposition him first, because the mutual blackmail there is sufficient.

And then one day he is stupid.

The tavern they're in is one he hasn't visited before: it's too small and unpolished for his tastes, but Fandral is wooing the owner's niece enthusiastically, and Loki recently mastered a difficult duplicating spell and is pleased enough to agree to his invitation. He's still on his first mug, only half-listening to the conversation at the table as he tries to work out how the spell could be altered to give the copies solidity without being fatally draining, when he spots Thor on the other side of the room.

Loki startles and wonders if he's stumbled onto one of his brother's haunts. He immediately marks the tavern's location in his mind and tilts to the side to see who Thor's sitting with.

He's tried to uncover his brother's trysts before. Despite the rumors, despite the concern and fear, it's impossible that Thor hasn't captured the attention of one or several of the braver Aesir. The idea that he could be wanting for bed companions is absurd. But so far, Loki has found nothing.

He shifts back and lifts his mug to conceal his narrowed gaze, and realizes that it isn't Thor.

His brother's armor is missing, and the clothing is all wrong: it's too coarse, too low. The hair is shorter and unbraided, the beard lesser, the shape of his face and arms not quite right. It's only a passing resemblance, made possible by firelight and distance, unable to hold up to scrutiny.

Loki settles on the bench and tries to go back to designing his spell.

When that fails, he attempts to follow the conversation at the table. But he's missed so much that he can contribute little, and now that he's paying attention he dislikes sounding witless by offering simplistic comments and agreements. Soon enough, Loki gives up on that as well and excuses himself.

Behind the tavern, he locks the privy and drags his hands through his hair, letting out a long breath. He does it again a few moments later, smoothing it back behind his ears; and as he repeats the gesture a third time Loki lets the glamour spill down over him.

He reinforces and binds it tightly so it won't break without significant effort, and leaves and returns to the tavern and takes a seat by the blond god.

The glamour is a small risk. The hair and face and shape are the same one he often uses when traveling in other realms--only the style of his clothing is changed.

But the odds of Heimdall entering this place are few. And Loki only takes this form when wandering on his own, and he's familiar and comfortable in its guise. Over time he's honed it to be its most attractive and appealing, to better prevail on others to get the things he wants. 

The god glances over with a smile as Loki settles on the bench across from him and calls to the serving woman for a mug of ale. It's not long until he's slipped his way into the conversation.

"Beli?" he snorts when the god introduces himself. "That sounds like a giant's name."

The god points a mock-accusing finger at him. "And Leif sounds like it belongs in Midgard. Are you sure you want to cast aspersions?"

Loki laughs. "Shall we agree our names are equally offensive to Aesir ears and let it go?"

Beli grins and holds out a hand. "Agreed." His smile widens and he holds Loki's hand a few heartbeats longer than necessary as he adds, "I wouldn't want to argue with new-met company."

Loki lets out a small breath and then takes a drink from his mug to conceal it.

The god's companions end up moving to the opposite side of the tavern for a game. Beli waves off joining, and Loki excuses himself as well. With space around them now, his flirting goes from subtle to clear to outrageous as it's returned in kind, until Beli breaks off with a laugh and looks over Loki's shoulder.

"They seem like they'll be occupied for a while," he says, watching his companions goad their opposition.

"Ah," Loki says, and he finally looks over where he was sitting earlier. Both Fandral and the owner's niece are gone. Volstagg and Hogun are drinking with a new group. "My friends appear to have left without me."

"A criminal error on their part," Beli says with a grin, pushing to his feet. "But I can't complain, if it means you're free for the evening?"

Loki curls the hand resting on his thigh until it digs into the fabric of his pants, and thinks that this is the last easy chance to sabotage this ill-advised idea before it goes too far. He says, "It seems so."

The god's grin softens as Loki rises to his feet as well.

Beli's home isn't far from the tavern. He leads Loki down a street and then along a set of stairs to the upper story of one of the small houses in the area. Loki marks the route and spots a secondary method of escape while they walk from long habit.

Inside, Beli drops the latch and goes to light a candle while Loki shakes off his cloak and casts a quick spell to make his light leather armor feel and sound like the cloth tunic it's glamoured to resemble. The other god drapes his cloak over a few pieces of armor and weapons and then turns back to him.

Loki shifts on his feet, aware of the locked door behind him.

If he were here as himself, he'd know what to do. He's practiced enough that his expectations and demands as prince come easily; there are differences between situations with women and with men, but never enough to throw him. If he were here as himself, the path forward would be clear: the other god on his knees with his mouth on Loki's cock, and then if that were done well Loki's hands on Beli's prick, and lastly a return to the palace to resume his duties.

But he's gone out of his way to conceal himself. Everything he's used to relying on would give him away--to potentially detrimental consequences, because if he's noticed the god's similarity to Thor others will surely do the same. The realization makes arrogance harder to summon.

It doesn't help that in certain ways the god _is_ so close to Thor. The shape of his face and the sound of his voice are wrong, but the strength in his build is clear. And though the light from the candle is dim, Loki can see his smile well enough.

Loki shifts on his feet and hesitates by the door as the other god walks over. He goes still when Beli reaches out and rubs a curl of hair between his fingers; and then he's being kissed.

Loki undresses himself, because his armor doesn't unlatch in the same places as the tunic it looks to be. He has to alter the glamour around it as he does, making his hands appear to be removing the tunic when they're rapidly unlacing and loosening the armor and jerking it and his undershirt over his head. By the time he's finished, the hasty use of magic has him panting. Beli finishes pulling his own tunic loose and kisses him harder.

His pants thankfully unlace like normal. Loki lets himself be guided away from the door as Beli unties them with one hand and splays the other against the small of his back. He jolts when the bed-frame hits his calves; he didn't realize it was so close.

Loki's breath hitches as he's urged down onto the bed.

It catches again when the other god drags the blanket back further and climbs onto it above him. In the back of his mind Loki knows that this is what he was directing the situation toward, what he was implying with all his flirting; but there's a difference between intention and lying naked on his back with a possibly stronger god trapping him against the mattress.

Beli leans down to kiss him again, and Loki lets him.

He closes his eyes and thinks that if he keeps them shut, if he asks the god not to speak, if he ignores the coarse weave of the sheet against his skin, then he can pretend this is how it might be. The candle is sitting on a low chest on the other side of the room, so even when his eyes startle open as Beli nips at his lip or throat, all Loki can see is a shadowed face.

He keeps his eyes shut and tries not to moan when the other god wraps a hand around his cock and begins to stroke it evenly as he leans to the side. Several moments later, Loki squeezes them tighter and can't help shivering as the other god rubs a slicked finger around his hole.

The god leaning over him kisses his shoulder and keeps stroking, and warns that it will be cold at first but promises it will warm up. Loki blinks his eyes open hazily and stares at the gold hair spilling over his shoulders and the flash of teeth behind the smile on his face, and lets his legs fall to the side and off the bed and opens himself. He shivers again when the other god draws a breath at that, and can't help the sound he makes when he pushes in.

The god who resembles Thor just enough turns out to be a surprisingly patient and generous lover.

He makes sure Loki stays hard while he's adjusting to the intrusive sensation of fingers inside him, using his mouth when his hand isn't enough and murmuring encouragement all the while. He keeps his touch gentle as Loki shakes beneath him--because now Loki knows how it might sound to have Thor coax him into rolling over on his stomach and rising up on his knees, how it might feel to have Thor rub a palm soothingly along his back as he works him open wider, how it might feel to have Thor drop kisses along his shoulders as he pulls his fingers out and readies himself to push inside.

Now he knows how Thor might move within him, his hand curled around Loki's own as he shivers and pants at the slick, steady ebb and flow of pressure. Now he knows how Thor might grip the base of Loki's own cock and hold back his orgasm until after he's spilled inside him, how Thor would work him quick and hard and tug loose while Loki's release shatters through him so he doesn't care about the discomfort.

Now he knows how he sounds as he begs, biting down viciously on his lip to keep in the name he wants to keen.

It all leaves Loki shaking, because it's wrong.

Thor wouldn't coax, wouldn't promise or cajole or assure. Thor would demand until Loki gave in, would take until Loki was too desperate with aching need to fight any longer. Thor might be kind, but only after Loki relented. It's all wrong, because it could be this way but it never actually will. The easy grip on his hip, the soft words murmured against his neck, the cock sliding undemandingly inside him, are brutal reminders that this is as close as he will ever get, and it's all wrong.

Despite himself, his throat is hoarse by the end. Loki sprawls across the mattress, the other god half-draped over him, and tries to work up the will to stand and dress and leave. His head feels fogged as the other god rolls off the bed, and he mentally starts arguments for why he needs to go but never manages to finish any. He hears water splash against clay.

He jolts when a warm, damp cloth touches his thighs.

The other god kisses his neck and shushes him, and then cleans him up. Loki hisses as he's dried with an edge of the blanket, the rough cloth harsh against his sensitive cock.

"Sorry," the other god murmurs, kissing him briefly again before moving away and rinsing off himself. Loki watches him in the guttering light through half-lidded eyes and thinks that he's supposed to be thinking of something.

The other god douses the candle and climbs back onto the bed when he's finished. He settles down beside Loki, draping an arm over his side and rubbing his forearm slowly.

"You should stay the night," he murmurs. "You shouldn't have to walk yet."

He can't stay, for many reasons, the most obvious being that he never does. Loki never sleeps in any bed but his own--no matter how his evenings go, whether he's traveling or whoring, in the end he makes his way back to the palace and truly sleeps only in his own room, surrounded by guards and spells and safety. Anything else would leave him open to violence; anything else invites Asgard's enemies to be rid of its future ruler. He has to go back. He has to get up and dress, and go.

Loki burrows his face into the pillow that feels softer now than it did at the start, and wonders why he's being so insistent. He's safe here--Thor will watch out for him.

The hand rubbing his arm pulls away briefly to drag the blanket up over them before curling over him once more. Loki yawns and settles back into his brother's warmth, and drifts to sleep.  
  
  
When he wakes and gets his bearings, he curses himself violently for his idiocy.

Beli stirs and wakes while he's dressing, and in the morning light drifting through the small window he looks even less like Thor. Loki's stupidity has apparently reached unfathomed depths; he curses it again. The fact that his glamour has held is the only thing keeping him from complete fury.

The other god stretches and pushes off the bed, coming over. Loki tightens his armor and shoves the latch up.

"Did you win your bet?" Beli asks.

Loki blinks, startled, and then looks at him. "What?"

Beli catches another curl of his hair and rubs it between his fingers. "I would have noticed someone like you walking through the doors," he says with a smile. "But you didn't. You appeared as if out of nowhere."

He raises an eyebrow. "I don't know why you picked me, but I hope I helped you win."

Loki, at a loss, simply tilts his head and smirks.

Beli's grin widens--and ah, there's the resemblance. He feels fractionally less ridiculous now.

"Well," he says, releasing Loki's hair, "if you ever make another wager, you know where to find me."

"I'll keep it in mind," Loki says, still smirking, before he bids him farewell and goes.

As he passes under a bridge, Loki lets the glamour drop. When he does, he realizes the lesser spell around his clothing has already fallen apart without his noticing--a clue to his identity, and an unforgivable slip. He is a _fool_.

But there's nothing to be done for it now unless he goes back and kills the god, and he's confident that that is not the way a crown prince should handle this problem. It isn't how Thor would. He thinks.

Loki scrapes a hand agitatedly through his hair and stomps his way to the palace.

He runs into Fandral in the hallway to his rooms. The other god pauses and turns at the sound of his approach, about to speak--and then he stops and whistles lowly instead.

"She must have been something," he comments, raising an eyebrow and falling in step beside him. "You never stay out all night."

Loki curses under his breath. "Is it that obvious?"

"It is," Fandral replies with a grin. "Were you anyone else I'd say you looked debauched."

"Wonderful," Loki mutters, smoothing back his hair with one hand as he shoves open his door.

"You sound it too," Fandral adds, much too amused. Loki growls at him before jerking to a halt at the sight of Thor in his room. Fandral stumbles behind him.

Loki is still for another few seconds, his heart beating hard as Thor ceases his pacing and turns toward him.

And then he exhales and presses a hand to his face as he remembers what he was supposed to do this morning.

"The training area," he grumbles. "We were going there."

"That we were," Fandral agrees, having drawn back into the hallway. "You stood us up, my prince. But I think under the circumstances, I can explain things...."

Loki waves a hand, still pinching the bridge of his nose, and moves into his room and begins undoing his armor. "No. No, I'll be there. Soon."

Fandral bows and leaves. If he starts snickering again, he has the sense to do it out of Loki's hearing.

Loki drops his armor on the floor and pours water into the basin, aggravated that he has to go spar in the state he's in, aggravated at himself for not just going straight to the baths before anyone could catch him, aggravated at everything on general principle.

Thor shifts where he stands, appearing at a loss for some reason, before going to lean against the footboard of Loki's bed.

"What did you need?" Loki demands, facing away as he rinses his face and neck. The last thing he feels ready to deal with right now is his brother.

"You were wearing that shirt yesterday," Thor says in response.

Loki blinks and frowns, and then scowls, and then rubs his temples hard. "My clothing is fairly similar," he replies. Fandral was right--his voice is still hoarse. He clears his throat, trying to recover himself.

"Where were you last night?" Thor asks quietly. He sounds hurt.

He's hearing things.

His mind is still mixed up from last night--he's clearly hearing things. He cannot deal with Thor now; he's not in his right mind. Loki grips the rim of the basin and retorts coldly, "Do I answer to you now?"

He glares over his shoulder and snaps, "When did you replace me as crown prince?"

Thor stiffens.

"Get out of my room," Loki demands. "I have places to be."

Thor glares at him, his fingers curled tight around the footboard, and Loki feels his stomach twist. He can go out and off the balcony if he has too, but he's in no shape to climb or run right now. If he goads Thor and can't lure him into Odin's quarters where their father is forced to deal with him, he'll be caught for sure. He tightens his grip on the basin further, ready to throw it if he has to.

Thor shoves away from the bed and storms out of his room.

Loki exhales shakily, and goes back to rinsing off.  
  
  
When he joins the Warriors Three and Sif at the training grounds, Thor is already there on the other side, sparring with one of his trainers. Hogun is at work with another warrior, and Sif and Fandral have partnered and are insulting each other as much as they are practicing, but Loki can see that they're all keeping a close eye on Thor.

He makes a pretense of sparring with Volstagg, but his own attention is on Thor as well. His brother's attacks are harsh, unrelenting, seething; his trainer's shield is chipped and cracking.

Just when Loki knows he needs to signal Volstagg for a draw, Thor stops abruptly. He blocks an attack the trainer doesn't pull in time, shoves his blade into the dirt, and walks away from the grounds.

The trainer braces his sword in the ground and leans on it heavily, panting. Volstagg falls back, and Hogun and Fandral and Sif drop their spars too quickly. Multiple warriors in the area look at him.

Loki exhales through his teeth. He tosses his staff in the vicinity of the weapons rack, says "Another day, then," in Volstagg's direction, and goes after Thor.

He would rather not fight his brother now if he doesn't have to, so he sends out an armful of sparrows to see if he must. The birds drift over Asgard unnoticed while Loki shuts himself in a small closet and closes his eyes to concentrate on the multiple viewpoints.

He finds Thor on the Bifrost, talking with Heimdall. His brother seems calmer now; the bird perches on the sphere long enough for Loki to determine that they're discussing space and the realms.

He dissolves the birds and opens his eyes, glaring at the darkened room.

A blur of jealousy curls through Loki at the realization that there's someone else his brother goes to in order to calm himself. But beneath that is a colder, sharper lick of fear.

If there's someone else capable of pulling Thor back from his anger, then Loki's secondary plan is useless.  
  
  
Eventually he goes out to the Bifrost, and waits near the edge of the bridge until Thor returns.

Loki doesn't apologize, and they don't discuss the morning. When they're halfway back into Asgard, however, Thor does ask if he should apologize to his trainer.

Loki shrugs. "It was a spar," he says. "You'd be insulting him."

Thor frowns slightly, uncertain; but on some things that he shouldn't he still trusts his brother, so he nods and lets it go.

Thor doesn't return to the training grounds for several days. Once he does, Loki makes sure his own practices with Fandral and his friends never overlap.

Things settle back to the way they normally are.

~

A balcony in one of the rooms in Odin's quarters overlooks the training grounds from a distance. He and Frigga stand on it, watching their sons spar as they argue.

"It's too soon," he repeats.

"It will soon be too late," Frigga retorts. "They're the last of their age who've not gone out beyond Asgard's walls."

"Thor is the last of their age," Odin corrects.

"Loki's skirmishes in Midgard cannot count," she replies. "He's only fought with mortals, not trolls or anything that would be regarded as a proper battle."

Odin shakes his head again. Frigga frowns.

"If you must hold Thor back longer, you can," she says. "No one will question your judgment there; you know berserkers best. But Loki must be sent out." She waves a hand at the grounds. "Too much longer, and people will begin to question why you're cushioning him. They'll begin to ask whether he knows enough of weapons to be an Aesir king, or if he has too much preference for magic--and you know the kind of insults that follow that."

"He **does** have too much preference for magic," Odin counters, though he has the decency to look as though he knows the words are hypocritical.

Frigga tilts her chin up. "If you need to confirm how well magic users can fight, my husband, I can retrieve my sword. We should _both_ serve as good examples."

He raises a hand, acknowledging the point. Frigga lets a brief smirk cross her mouth, but it fades as she moves closer.

"It isn't his magic that's the issue," she says. "Tell me what is, so we can address it and send our son to the battlefield where he belongs."

"He's not my son," Odin replies.

Frigga draws herself up.

"In his mind he is not," Odin says, looking at her. "You know that. At best, I'm his mother's husband." He looks out at the training grounds again. "How much, then, can I trust him to act in my stead?"

That argument is harder to refute. Frigga exhales slowly, resting her hands on the railing.

"He's still young," she offers. "The young are always at war with themselves, and he's carrying more burdens than most. In time he'll settle, and this will pass."

Odin shifts Gungnir in his grip. "I wish I could be as sure as you."

Frigga arches an eyebrow. "Not giving up is a good way to begin."

He flashes her an annoyed glance, but when she only raises the brow higher it soon softens. Odin huffs and lays his hand over hers.

"You're right," he replies.

"You may have been as well," she murmurs, laying her other hand over his. "Perhaps we shouldn't have told him."

"No," Odin says with a shake of his head. "If this is how poorly he's taking the news, it's better he was told honestly than stumbling across it somehow." His palm flexes between her hands. "Or having Laufey or one of his kin finding him, and filling his head up with lies."

Frigga exhales sharply at the thought of that danger, now thankfully evaded, and squeezes her husband's hand briefly.

"In time," she repeats. "He and Thor will both be better once they've grown more. They intend well; they only need to learn how to control those feelings."

Odin turns his hand and clasps her own. "...I wish I could be as sure as you," he says quietly.

Frigga glances at his throat, at the lingering abrasion where he hung himself from Yggdrasil in one of his many dangerous quests for knowledge; and she thinks there is no doubt that Loki is his son. Some things overpower blood.

She looks at his eye-patch, a permanent sign of the costs of their war with Jotunheim, and thinks there is no doubt Thor will protect Asgard just as devotedly.

Frigga smiles. "I have faith enough for both of us."

The corner of her wisdom-weary husband's mouth lifts briefly. Odin raises her hand and presses it to his lips.

~

He and Thor continue to grow until they're eventually at the age where they have to prove themselves warriors. Odin delays longer than is seemly before sending them out, but at last he must or else risk their names and his own.

They go together, of course.  
  
  
During the first two battles they're sent to, Thor maintains his composure.

The third--against a few packs of trolls who've been harrying Alfheim until the elves were forced to petition Asgard for aid--goes harder. In the middle of it, after one of Loki's clones has been smashed so fiercely that the backlash sends him skidding across the grass, Thor's control snaps.

Loki isn't surprised when he sinks into his berserker fury. He's wanted this for the past two battles, hoped for it, planned for it, done everything short of deliberately provoking it; but, as always, he underestimates it.

The most destructive and easiest part is already over. At first Loki mainly herded Thor into the remaining trolls to obliterate them while staying as far from his brother's reach as possible. But eventually the trolls are all either dead or fled, and Thor recognizes him.

Loki's chest aches and his throat burns; he has a stitch in his side from so much running and dodging and darting in for quick strikes and feints to wear Thor down a little faster. His hands are going numb from too many spells: obstacles to buy him more time, clones to throw Thor off. He's growing light-headed. If they were somewhere else, Loki would have concealed himself under a glamour by now, would have wrapped himself up in an invisibility spell and left Thor to stalk the area while he caught his breath.

But they aren't somewhere else, and they aren't alone. The other warriors are close enough that Loki would still be panting when Thor discovered them--and he's never seen what would happen if his brother spots others after catching sight of him. Thor changes when he manages to discern Loki amid whatever red haze his mind becomes in his berserker state: his violence shifts to pursuit, his rage turning to an even more terrifying satisfaction. 

So far, that change has always signaled the beginning of his calming down. But Thor has never run into others after it's begun--everyone around them has always cleared away while Loki either leads Thor off or is chased out to empty places.

It may change nothing, and Thor will remain in this in-between state before finally coming back to himself. Or it may set him off and make him revert to his original fury, and then Loki will have to endure all this a second time.

He's sure he can't succeed at that, so he keeps running and takes the risk of failing at this from exhaustion. He's keenly aware that the other warriors are out there watching him.

He's always managed to outrun his brother so far, but he doesn't know how much longer that will last. Thor grows stronger with each year, and some days Loki barely feels he's keeping pace when he has to be staying ahead.

No matter how skilled he grows with magic and distance weapons, he still has nightmares about the day he'll eventually be caught.

Sometimes he survives in them. Not always.

But he is being watched, weighed, judged as to whether he's worthy to hold the throne; so he keeps going.

He forces Thor in and out of the trees, tripping him up with branches, undergrowth, rocks and rubble. But the longer it goes on, the more unsure Loki becomes whether he's leading or being chased, whether he's wearing Thor down or Thor is harrying him. He stumbles over just as many brambles as his brother, crashes into branches the same as Thor. His legs ache from running through the mud churned up by the pouring rain. He can barely keep any breath in his lungs. His heart feels about to burst. His vision is narrowing as he grows dizzier, so he curves back toward the battlefield where there's less to trip on even if it's more visible to the warriors. Loki no longer gives a damn if they have a clear view of him being caught; he doesn't want to break an ankle and be crippled when Thor reaches him. Maybe the Aesir will even help if they can see him. No they won't.

There's less to trip over on the battlefield, but there's far, far more to slip on. Loki loses his traction twice in places where the grass and mud haven't soaked up all the blood yet, stumbles over an arm he doesn't notice in time, and finally slides in viscera and loses his footing. He turns and throws a knife behind him as he falls, pinning Thor's cape to the ground. His brother wrenches at the fabric furiously, and Loki uses the few seconds' respite to scrabble to his hands and knees. He throws another knife into Thor's cape before his brother can rip it free of the first.

Instead of snarling, Thor hisses out his breath in a weary, angry whine.

Loki almost sobs in relief at the sound, because it means Thor is on the verge of collapse, almost ready to go down despite himself. Loki only has to keep ahead, keep moving, keep out of his reach for a little longer, and then this will be one more fit he's survived. Just a little longer. Just for a little more.

Loki grabs another knife and rolls into a crouch as Thor rips his cape loose from his armor on one side. But he can't make himself stand, even as Thor hefts his axe and twists around. His legs burn so badly they're shaking with it. If he tries to get up he'll fall right back down.

Loki watches his brother hack at the remainder of his pinioned cape and thinks muzzily that he doesn't care anymore. When Thor gets loose and dives at him he'll just fall backward into the mud and give up, let Thor choke him or beat him or do whatever it is he wants so badly that he runs Loki to the ground like this every single time. His breath is already rasping through his parched throat, his muscles already ache so much he feels shredded inside; Thor can't hurt him much further. At least it'll be over. At least he'll finally know what's going to happen when he's caught.

Thor chops the cape free and turns to him. Loki swallows down an exhausted whimper and tries to push to his feet. His legs don't obey.

Thor wrenches his cape loose from its other clasp when the tatters fall over his arm, still staring at Loki intently. Loki tries once more to get up, fails, and then shifts the knife in his hand so it's ready to stab.

Thor may be his brother, but he doesn't want to die like this. If Loki gouges his arm open badly enough, Thor won't be able to keep a decent hold on him before his rage finally burns out. He just needs a little longer. He can survive this.

Thor keeps one hand tight on the axe as he watches Loki; but he doesn't step forward.

The rain is falling so hard Loki can't see any of the other Aesir. Maybe they're no longer out there. Maybe it's just him and Thor here and has been for a while, and he's let himself be worn down for nothing and no one is around to come to his aid. Thor is wheezing for breath, the cape clenched in his fist--but he stays where he is, swaying on his feet, his gaze fixed on Loki.

Loki thinks hazily that this is probably the kind of situation other creatures pray to them in.

Then Thor blinks.

He does it a second time and then again, the intensity in his face fading as fatigue starts to leech through him. He thuds the axehead into the mud and leans heavily against it for a few moments, still struggling to focus on Loki's face.

And at last-- _finally_ \--he slumps to the ground.

Loki exhales raggedly and sinks to his knees.

He drops back on the ground a breath later, not caring when his hand slips on a stray length of intestine or that blood and rain is soaking into his pants. When Thor's axe falls to the side, Loki shoves his knife back into its holster and wraps his arms around his stomach, curling in against the ache in his sides.

Once Thor mostly catches his breath, his head jerks up.

"Our people," he pants, starting to struggle to his feet. "Are they--?"

Loki crawls over and manages to grab his arm before he can stagger off. "They're fine," he promises, as soothing as he can through his raw throat. "They're fine, Thor. You didn't hurt any of them. Have some faith in me, brother," he adds, miffed.

Thor lets out a shaky breath and drops down beside him once more. Loki lets go and slumps back, propping an arm on his knee and resting his forehead against it.

For a time it is only the two of them there on the field; and then, eventually, the other Aesir move back in.

Fandral climbs carefully over the shattered remains of a troll and comes close enough to speak easily to them, but doesn't step within arm's reach. Loki doesn't think less of him for it; he prefers that others don't fully understand Thor's rages. "Prince Loki, Prince Thor--are you well?"

"Yes," Thor replies, and Loki cuffs him on the head.

"Ow!" Thor shoves him in the shoulder. Loki swats his hand away.

"Your leg's torn open," Loki tells him bluntly. "Can you not tell yet?"

Thor looks down at the gash in his leg, the blood staining his pants and the ground beneath him, and frowns. Loki exhales and notes that Thor is still riding the edge of his fit and hasn't calmed as much as Loki first thought, and that he's hiding it better these days.

Then he grabs the nearest swath of Thor's cape, slices it, and tourniquets the wound. He gives Fandral instructions for following up the battle as he does: tracking down those who fled, seeing to the wounded, disposing of the dead. Thor's use ends once a battle is over; Fandral's increases.

But Thor's use _in_ battle is immeasurable, while Fandral is only one more skilled warrior among many.

"And you?" the god asks, when Loki's finished his orders.

"I'll see to my brother and return," he replies. "Hold the field until then."

Fandral bows in response. Then he turns and calls out, "Hogun! It's time for the consequences of being too skilled with your mace, my friend!"

Loki snickers once as he pushes to his feet. He catches Thor watching him and holds out a hand to pull him up as well. "Come on, that needs to be tended."

He leads Thor out of the swirling mess of mud and gore the battlefield's become and takes him to a spot where the grass is trampled but cleaner. Thor's leg is still bleeding heavily; he leaves a trail behind them, and leans hard against a tree when they stop. Loki bites the edge of his lip and crouches to look at the wound again.

"Call Heimdall." Loki drifts his fingers just over Thor's thigh as he flicks spells into the gash: one to cauterize the bleeding, another to dull the coming pain. "This may have to be sewn."

Thor drops a hand onto his head, thumbing Loki's bangs away from the sweat drying on his forehead. Loki startles and goes still, the next spell on his still half-numb fingers shuddering before falling apart in the sudden loss of concentration. "I want to stay."

"And I'd rather not have you collapse and have to haul your bulk across the Bifrost," Loki answers. He rolls up onto his feet, and Thor's hand falls to his side. But he keeps staring at Loki, his eyelids heavy from the weariness that follows his rages and with a faint lingering bloodlust, or something similar, barely visible beneath.

Loki forces down a shiver, tells himself he's seeing things, and takes a step back. Thor reaches out and catches his belt.

"Don't send me back alone," his brother says quietly. "We left together. We should return together."

"No one is going to think anything of it when you're returning because you're clearly injured," Loki dismisses, trying to tug his belt free.

Then he pauses as he remembers Thor never seems to care about how others might interpret what they see. He frowns.

" _Loki_ ," Thor almost pleads.

Loki exhales shortly, but gives in. "Fine. Fine, you fool. Sit here. Try not to fall asleep. I don't want to come back and find some straggler's cut your throat."

He wants to rescind the words as soon as they're out. He shouldn't have pulled Thor so far from the others. He should have at least brought the axe. It isn't likely someone will attack his brother here--the enemy's been routed in the opposite direction--but it isn't impossible. 

Thor slides down the trunk to sit on the ground. "I'll be fine," he says, smiling up at Loki. "You're here."

His brother's faith leaves him pleased and exasperated at the same time, as always. Loki throws his hands in the air and goes to find Fandral.

The god is piling up bodies along with several others. Loki looks over the area quickly and notes that Volstagg has remained behind, felling trees for the pyre. Hogun has as well, which is a surprise until he sees that the god's weapon arm is wrapped in sodden bandages and he's using his shield-hand to drag the corpses. Sif and Balder are absent, apparently off with those doing the routing.

"A change," Loki tells him. "I'm taking Thor back to Asgard."

Fandral nods and doesn't question him. "We'll finish things up here."

Loki is silent for a few moments, looking over the battlefield once more. Then he juts his chin at the treeline to the south.

"Bring those that surrender willingly back to Asgard," he orders. "Kill the rest."

Beside him, Fandral pauses.

After a breath, he drops the corpse he's lugging and straightens. "We don't need to return with prisoners any longer?" he asks, choosing his words carefully as he references Odin's orders before they rode out.

"We have prisoners already," Loki replies, nodding toward the few trolls kneeling to their left, under guard. "Dragging back more who fight or stay unconscious the whole way will only further tax the warriors who've already fought admirably."

Fandral is no fool--he knows he's being given a test. The god is silent beside him as he rapidly tries to determine the correct answer to it; Loki has never openly subverted Odin's orders before.

He doesn't hesitate long before nodding. "Understood, prince. I'll tell Volstagg to fell a few more trees, just in case." He smiles. "Hopefully we'll be able to convince them all to surrender quietly."

It's well played: siding with him, but leaving just enough room to defend himself and his comrades later in front of either Loki or Odin. It's the answer Loki both expected and hoped for.

He exhales just audibly enough that Fandral can hear it--but before he can speak, the other god shades his face and glances up at the pouring sky and drawls, "We should have plenty of time while we're trying to get the pyre to light."

Loki snerks.

He begins laughing in earnest a moment later, leaning forward and bracing his hands on his thighs as the remaining tension from handling Thor flows out of him. Fandral blinks, clearly surprised at the excessive reaction to the quip; but he's smiling himself within moments and then chortling as well.

It's one of the main reasons Loki has held onto his and Volstagg's company over all these years, despite clashes in their personalities. Fandral enjoys wit, enjoys the sound of laughter, and Loki does the same. They often disagree on its proper causes; they rarely do on its value.

Loki shakes his head when he realizes he looks like he's succumbing to hysterics. He straightens as he catches his breath, and then rolls his shoulders back and nods. "I'll get him to cease it."

A breath later he asks lowly, "What have the others said?"

Fandral ceases reaching for the corpse again and props a fist on his hip, tilting closer to Loki.

"I've not heard much yet," he answers, equally quiet. "But it seems mostly...wary, but admiring."

"The truth, Fandral," Loki says wryly, raising an eyebrow.

The other god holds up his palms peaceably. "Only trying to decide between 'wary' and 'cautious,'" he promises.

He drops his hands and looks out over the field.

"It wasn't as bad as the rumors made me think it would be," Fandral murmurs, studying the churned and reddened mud. "Few are bearing up as well as you, but that can't be held against them."

It's a request as much as a statement, and Loki accedes. "I've seen worse," he agrees, because he has, in his nightmares.

Fandral lets out a breath. "I'll keep an ear out," he vows. "But these raids have gone on for so long, I suspect what most will remember is how quickly this one ended."

Loki glances at the ground as he knocks the offal from his stained boots, and studies the god carefully in the corner of his vision.

Fandral's smile is a little more forced than normal, but other than that his expression matches his words, condoning rather than vilifying Thor. Loki takes it at face value: though Fandral is skilled at navigating the tricky paths of diplomacy, he's never yet displayed the duplicity Loki always assumed was a part of it.

That, even more than his wit, has kept Fandral in his inner circle all these years. Loki trusts too little to relinquish anyone who suggests loyalty, even if he never completely believes them.

Fandral hesitates while Loki scrapes his boots cleaner in silence, and tilts his head down. "I wasn't able to clear everyone out of sight in time," he says quietly.

Loki waves a hand in dismissal. "It couldn't be helped," he shrugs, and thinks _Good_.

He knew Fandral could never fulfill that order. Thor's rages surge over him too quickly for a full squad of warriors to retreat far enough in time.

Loki has wanted and hoped and planned for Thor to succumb to his berserker side for the past few battles, because he wants the Aesir to see exactly what his brother is like in the depths of his bloodlust, and he wants them to know just how much it costs Loki to drag Thor up from them. When they return to Asgard, the warriors here will inevitably tell tales--and the more the Aesir fear Thor, the less likely they'll be to rally around him if Loki's jotun heritage is uncovered.

And even if they do choose their own kind over him, Loki may still be able to keep himself from being executed if the Aesir believe he's the only one who can survive pulling Thor back from the edge of his furies.

He would rather be a king than a lion-tamer, but if he keeps himself alive he has the time to regain whatever he loses. He'll just have to make sure he gets rid of Heimdall first.

Fandral nods again, and Loki taps his fingers against his knife holsters as he has a thought.

"It may work to our advantage," he says. He tilts his head to the treeline again. "Send someone to those tracking down the fleeing. Of the trolls that fight back, let three escape." Loki rubs his thumb over the handle of one of his knives, the edge of his mouth curving up. "The stories they'll tell will make the rest think twice about continuing these raids."

"With foreknowledge, they may build better defenses against us," Fandral considers.

Loki lets himself smile fully as he goes to pick up the axe still lying in its encrusted gore.

"There is no defense against Thor Odinson," he tells Fandral, and returns to his brother. 

As he goes, Loki considers again Fandral's reaction to Thor. He's been very careful to keep the two of them in separate spheres of his life, but perhaps it's finally safe to let them mingle. Recent circumstances have solidified his hold on Fandral.

And Thor will never leave him. Loki will lobby to their father for Thor to be allowed out in more battles, and he'll twist the tales and rumors that spread in the aftermath to ensure Thor goes nowhere, because there will be nowhere open to him besides at Loki's side.

He can have that much of his brother, at least.

Thor is watching him narrowly as Loki drags the axe up to the tree where he's slumped. Loki frowns to conceal the disconcerting feeling of being tracked, and holds out a hand to pull him to his feet.

Thor takes it silently, and doesn't let go. Loki frowns again and tugs sharply as he says, "Cease the rain, brother, or they'll never get the wood to light."

Thor huffs out a breath and looks up at the sky. Loki uses his distraction to yank his hand free--only it doesn't work. Thor clenches tighter as the thunder above them starts to slowly roll away.

Loki finally gives up and just calls, "Heimdall!"  
  
  
As they make their way to the healers, Thor only releases his hand after Loki whacks him hard on the wrist.

He drapes an arm over Loki's shoulders less than a heartbeat later. Still worn from the battle, Loki just shakes his head and doesn't waste his breath arguing, or asking why Thor keeps watching him so closely as he lugs the two of them down the halls.

For one shaky moment he thinks Thor overheard the conversation between him and Fandral and has pieced together Loki's intents--but that's impossible. Thor was much too far away, and they were quiet. His brother would have seen him speaking with the other god, but he could have no idea what it was about.  
  
  
It still takes him the rest of the day and much of the night to shake off the sharp, focused gaze in Thor's eyes.

He's edgy enough that he doesn't go to the healers' quarters to look in on his brother that evening. Instead, he joins Fandral at a drinking hall and treats the warriors who were in the raid to a barrel of ale snuck from the palace's kitchens. Volstagg drinks enough of it that Loki goads a few other gods into picking an argument with him so he can quietly purchase a second from the hall's owner instead of having to filch another from the kitchens. 

When he checks on Thor the next day, his brother prods him about where he was the previous night until Loki finally tells the story.

Thor turns quieter and withdrawn after that. But he manages a smile and a few words of encouragement when Loki is summoned away, to account to Odin for disregarding orders.  
  
  
Later, when Thor's leg has been stitched and healed and scarred over, he asks Loki to bring him along the next time he goes out drinking.

"Of course," Loki replies, surprised but pleased that Thor has asked before he's had to find a way to entice him to go. Now that Odin trusts Loki as his brother's keeper and no longer focuses such stringent attention on Thor, his brother hasn't been so desperate to escape their home. Now, he's normally too aware of the stories about him, and of the way the Aesir edge away from him, to tread far from the palace where he's only a familiar threat.

Fandral raises both eyebrows when Thor sits down at the table with Loki. Volstagg narrows his eyes briefly, and Sif and Hogun shift in their seats, though not enough that they're blatantly setting themselves for a fight.

And then Fandral grins and greets them both; and later Sif and Hogun and Thor end up arm wrestling among themselves; and later still Thor and Volstagg get into a drinking contest that ends only when Loki refuses to keep paying for the ale despite repeated jeers for being miserly.

Thor leans far too heavily on his shoulders as they make their way back to the palace that night, but Loki only jabs an elbow into his side once for it. He smiles to himself as Thor hums under his breath, pleased at how well the evening's gone, feeling content, for the first time in a long while, with the potential spread of the future before them.

~

No one knows how Thor gained the hammer.

The guards along the route between the treasury and Thor's room are questioned and threatened and cajoled separately and in groups to tease out any bit of falsehood among their reports. Loki is summoned to the throne room and interrogated with intensive suspicion, until more trustworthy people verify that he was far from the area, conversing with one of the royal cartographers about landscape changes in Niflheim following a particularly destructive battle in Muspelheim that spilled fire and lava across the borders. He leaves Odin's presence feeling wrung dry of any remaining trace of filial devotion.

The Destroyer's vision is reviewed; Heimdall is spoken to. All reports appear the same: Mjölnir left the treasury of its own volition and sought out Thor.

The hammer is invested with Odin's magic, but when he tries to take it back the lightning strike it unleashes leaves his arm blackened and half-melted to his armor.

He's been in the healers' quarters for the past two days and they're predicting he'll be there several more. He is still officially ruling, but Loki has noticed that over the last day an increasing number of gods are coming to him to solve simpler, smaller issues and feuds that they hesitate to bring to the All-father under the current circumstances.

The requests for audiences are growing more and more frequent. Loki uses a gap of free time while he still has it to walk around the hammer where it lays on the throne room's floor, studying it from a cautious distance.

When it doesn't lash out he eventually comes closer, crouching beside it and holding a palm a span above. He brings his hand down carefully, until he begins to feel the energy crackling around it: wild and chaotic. It feels less like his father's magic and more like he's holding his hand to sheet lightning.

If the weapon once answered to Odin, it does so no longer.

Loki decides there's no way to separate it from Thor and goes down to the dungeons.

All the way down the Einherjar let him pass without question, assuming that because he walks with such certainty and looks so focused, he must have permission to be where he is. It's an old trick, one he's been employing for as far back as he can remember; but it has yet to feel natural.

Thor is pacing in one of the nearest cells, in plain view of other prisoners, and Loki feels another spike of fury.

He almost starts to throw a glamour around the windows, but then forces himself to drop his hand. It's too late now. _Stupid old man_.

There are some days when Loki feels that Odin is trying to ruin the realm himself rather than pass it down to him.

All that stays him from being certain is the single aspect of his father Loki has never doubted: his love for Frigga. Odin might be glad to curse his misbegotten sons with that burden, but he wouldn't make his wife endure it with them.

Loki raps hard on the wall to draw his brother's attention and then moves down the side corridor to the spot farthest from the other prisoners and guards. Thor follows him there but cannot stand still, shifting with agitated energy.

"Will you give me permission to handle Mjölnir?" Loki asks, and that makes Thor pause and look over at him.

"I think I can free you," he continues. "But to prove my case I have to be able to touch it without it trying to kill me."

Thor snorts. "She wouldn't hurt you," he replies with a certainty Loki doubts, but he nods. "Yes. You may handle her."

Loki dips his head shortly and turns to go.

At the wall, he hesitates. When he looks back into the cell, Thor is pacing again, his thudding steps echoing through the barriers into the corridor.

Loki raps on the pillar once more. "Do you want anything?"

Thor peels his lips back from his teeth.

"I'm buried under miles and miles of rock and mortar," he snarls. "Get me out, Brother."

Loki thinks again of sheet lightning, thunderclouds, the rain and the vast spread of the universe above the walls of Asgard. The closest thing to the sky in this dismal place is the blue of Thor's eyes as he stares at Loki, half demanding and half desperate.

"I will," he promises, and goes.  
  
  
Mjölnir is not quite as blatantly hostile to his presence when he returns. Loki tells one of the guards who approaches him to hold back the petitioners until further notice; he is on the king's business right now.

He does not specify whether current or future.

He can get close enough to grasp the hammer's handle, but the energy pulsing through it nearly leaves his hand numb. It still feels more like raw chaos than magic--and as it crawls up his arm something in Loki's chest loosens.

He doesn't have to give the hammer back.

He could keep it for himself, and let this stark magic fill him completely. Holding Mjölnir, for the first time Loki doesn't feel as though he's contorting himself into a mold he will never fit: the dutiful son, the honorable brother, the just ruler.

Why did he even want to be those things in the first place? _This_ is what he wants--this wild abandon, the ability to throw the dice and see how things fall apart from there, to watch everyone else run and panic in response to the strings he pulls. That's how he ought to be.

That's what he was always supposed to be, before his brother derailed their fates.

Loki shivers as the power curls up through him. He bites the edge of his lip and thinks of Thor in that cell, pressed down into a cramped cage of his own.

With difficulty, and only half-willing, Loki forces the urge away. He drags a hand hard over his face and then directs his attention to siphoning the energy off into the small silver disc he's brought along, until Mjölnir realizes what he's doing.

He expected it to fight back eventually; but he didn't predict how. Its power sharpens, focusing, and then changes to something else entirely.

**This** is magic--but it's no kind he's ever worked. It's just as raw as the chaos that previously trumped it, but that he could name and this he cannot. The chaos reminded him of Thor, of the rain and all the various aspects of his brother's godhood; this, he can't recognize.

\--No, not all Thor's aspects. Storms, yes; violence, yes; but the fecundity that follows the rain wasn't in there. It's a lesser side to Thor, but one that--

_Blessings_ , Loki thinks, his mind jumping links from fertility to rituals to consecration not so much in realization as self-defense. A hammer both destroys and builds: this is the side of Mjölnir devoted to creation. No, more.

This is a force to purge impurities.

Loki throws himself back, stumbling away from the weapon, and the disc clatters on the stones as he clutches his arm to his chest. It's completely numb. When he looks down, Loki sees with shock that his fingernails have turned black.

They do the same when he touches the Casket of Ancient Winters.

Loki's breath shortens as he stares at the hammer and realizes he's been marked out.  
  
  
He stays crouched on the throne room floor until he's finally calmed himself. When his heart is no longer pounding violently and his breath isn't so ragged to his ears, he begins to flex his hand until feeling returns to it once more.

He retrieves the disc slowly, giving the hammer a wide berth. There's less energy trapped in the silver than he hoped, but it's enough for what he needs.

Loki wraps the disc carefully in a swatch of soft leather stolen as he passed the workshop of the Einherjar's cobbler. He tucks it away and puts a glamour on his hands, and goes to the healers' quarters.  
  
  
The case he makes to Odin is simple. Thor did not call the hammer knowingly, or cause it to attack him; Mjölnir did these things on its own, drawn to someone similar to itself and rejecting the attempt to separate it from him.

It is simple, and obvious, and Loki suspects it's even true. But because Odin believes the hammer should answer to him above all others, he has to fight to have it accepted.

"It did once," he concedes, trying to strike the balance between mollifying his father but not offering insult. Loki pulls the disc loose and unwraps the leather. "We all know this. But something's changed."

"And what would that be?" Odin asks, the haughtiness in his tone still not enough to disguise the fact that he is lying on his bed while Loki and Frigga sit upright beside him, or that his weapon arm is swathed in bandages and poultices and healing runes and theirs are not.

"I don't know," Loki replies. He holds the disc out in his cupped palms, the leather insulating it from his skin. "I didn't take much interest in the hammer when you showed us the treasury. But this--this isn't how it used to be, is it?"

Odin frowns and shifts himself partly up, leaning back against the pillow Frigga tucks behind him before reaching his good hand out to the disc.

He only holds his fingers above it, not to it. Loki files away the sign of distrust and keeps his expression earnest and concerned.

Odin frowns hard at the disc, and then picks it up. As he turns it over in his hand, the silver flashes with glints of light that are reflections of nothing in the room. The look in Odin's eye drifts from wary to uncertain to skeptical, to suspicious.

" _Is_ this from Mjölnir?" he finally asks.

The doubt comes as no surprise. Loki no longer remembers when he and his father became enemies, and only vaguely recalls that it wasn't always that way. "Yes."

Odin gives his hands--unblackened, unscarred, seemingly uninjured--a significant look.

It's a piece Loki would rather keep, but sacrificing it has the potential to open up a new stretch of the board to him. "I asked Thor for permission to touch it."

His mother is startled, his father incredulous. Loki continues explaining: "It seemed the wisest thing to do after my first examination. When he said yes, I was able to handle it long enough to do that before it began fighting me."

"You speak as if it's sentient," Odin says.

Loki gives him a quick look; but the expression on Odin's face appears sincere.

Not that that means anything. Loki shakes his head and says, "If it wasn't before, it is now."

Odin still clearly doubts him--but the disc he continues to turn in his fingers is Loki's proof against accusation. All Odin has to do is go to the throne room or send Frigga there to examine the hammer: the magic in it and in the disc will equal.

Odin may be half-willing to believe that Mjölnir is responding to Thor in an unprecedented way, but he clearly doesn't think Loki is capable of altering something as powerful as the hammer. The fact that it's true doesn't make the assumption feel any less like an insult.

"You shouldn't have gone to see him," Odin mutters, turning the disc once more and rubbing his thumb against it.

"You shouldn't have locked him up down there," Loki says before he can stop himself.

The room falls silent.

Odin fixes him with an impenetrable expression. "Are you questioning me?"

"Yes," Loki replies.

A sickly chill is spreading through his chest; but the words can't be taken back now, so he sludges forward. "Your own son is in clear sight of Asgard's worst enemies. If you had to lock him away it should have been where no one would see him."

"And now you presume to dictate how I should rule," Odin murmurs. Loki wonders abruptly if he knows about the petitioners he's been dealing with--if they were a trap he fell into. "The throne is not yet yours to make these decisions."

"The throne will be no one of Asgardian blood's if our family's squabbles are revealed to all our enemies," Loki says sharply. "A royal son should not be thrown in with common criminals."

He gestures agitatedly. "Blame it on the hammer if a scapegoat must be had. Blame it on the dwarf that made it. No one will question your ruling on a magical weapon, and the treaties with them are so complex that by the time they're sorted out your arm will be healed and it can be settled by a proxy duel during a feast, when high tempers can be blamed on ale. But _this_ was ill-thought out."

"...Craftily considered." Odin continues to stare at him fixedly. "Spoken like a trickster."

"Spoken like one who does not wish to see Asgard crumble from its perch," Loki responds evenly.

His heart is racing. He is aware, all too painfully aware, that he could lose everything for this: he is not yet king, there is another son to take his place, and he has no blood-claim to the throne.

He has no true claim to anything he enjoys, not if Odin decides otherwise.

His father brought him to this realm, literally gave him a second chance at life and raised him toward the potential future he was denied by those who sired and birthed him; but that also means that he can strip away all these gifts if he so chooses and Loki will have no recourse to stop him. Affection is the only glue holding him into this family, and most days he and his father no longer share any. 

If his hands weren't pressed against his knees, they would be shaking. 

He doesn't dare look at his mother, because ultimately there will be no aid there. The All-father's word is final.

Odin continues to stare at him in silence, judging, weighing. Loki restrains the urge to swallow and wonders briefly if he'll have time to make it back down the dungeons to Thor, or if he'll be driven out immediately and thrown from the Bifrost with only the clothes on his back. 

He'll have to travel from there to one of the pathways into Asgard--it could take days. Weeks. More, if Heimdall drops him in the most forsaken spot he can spy. Thor will think he's abandoned him.

"The treaties are too complex," Odin says, and Loki blinks. "If Eitri is blamed, negotiations with the dwarves will inevitably end in stalemates, **and** we'll lose our greatest suppliers of iron and weapons." He turns the disc in his hand once more, slowly. "And if Mjölnir is blamed but cannot be taken from Thor, it will only worsen others' fear of him."

Odin fixes his eye on Loki once more. "What, then, would _you_ do?"

"Blame magic," Loki says simply.

He gestures to the disc, then spreads his hands to encompass his parents. "Thor's connection to storms is well known, and there's not a sorcerer in Asheim who won't agree that that's the kind of magic ruling Mjölnir now. Call a council of them, have the word made public." Loki shrugs. "The records of Aesir berserkers are slim--this is merely an unexpected occurrence that we will seek to understand."

Odin raises an eyebrow faintly. "And you believe everyone will accept that?"

"They will if enough of us say it's the case," he argues. "Most Aesir know little of magic beyond the things they work with. They'll sneer this off as another example of its inferiority to physical combat and go on with their lives. Thor will be fine."

His parents stare at him, and Loki wonders abruptly if he's said too much.

"You would use your peoples' general ignorance of the depths of magic, and lie to them, to free an unpredictable and destructive god from his deserved punishment?" Odin asks quietly.

Loki's fingers curl.

"It's no lie," he snaps, gesturing harshly to the disc. "And I would tell the people what they need to hear, to release my brother and ensure that no one sees any exploitable divisions between their ruler and his family."

If he takes the back way, around the baths, he can evade any Einherjar sent after him long enough to reach the dungeons. The paths there are too narrow for more than two to follow abreast. Heimdall will see him, but by the time he can do anything about it, Loki will have reached Thor and gotten the cell's barrier down. After that....

Loki thinks of Mjölnir's energy against his skin, imagines that maelstrom working its way through his brother's veins, and thinks, _After that, we'll see_.

For the first time in his life, he thinks, _There's always Jotunheim_.

A shudder runs down Loki's spine. He drops his head and stares at the leather swatch in his palm, eyes wide, breath coming shorter.

"Craftily considered," Odin says at last. He tips the disc once more, watching the light glint as the magic strains in its confines.

Then he holds it out. "Frigga, summon a council of the realm's best sorcerers and sorceresses. See if Karnilla will come."

Loki folds the disc back into the leather and hands it to his mother as Odin gives him his own instructions. "You may have Thor released. But see him to his rooms, and make sure he _does not_ leave until this matter is settled. You'll have your wish; he's not to be seen by others."

"What of his servants?" Loki asks, because it's more useful than the sarcastic quip he would prefer.

"The mortal ones can serve him," Odin dismisses. "The Aesir will be pulled to help prepare for our arriving company."

"Yes, sir," he answers, because 'my king' is too formal and the same term that those outside the royal family use, and he will not let himself become one of them. Loki bows and departs.

As he leaves, he sees that the room and the hall around it are completely empty. Loki exhales through his teeth and notes that later he'll have to re-find the healers who were serving Odin and absented themselves during the argument, and reward them for knowing their place.  
  
  
Thor grins when Loki comes back to free him, but by the time he has the barrier down his brother's expression has turned to a frown.

When the forcefield between them is gone, Thor reaches out and cups a hand against his neck. Loki tenses--abruptly more aware of the glamour on his fingers, deeply familiar with what Thor's hands are capable of--but his brother ignores it. "What happened?" Thor asks.

"Nothing," Loki replies, uncomfortable. They're in range of too many guards, too many prisoners. The question is too personal for these circumstances and the touch too intimate for any.

"Liar," Thor says without rancor. "You're pale." His voice drops. "What did he do?"

Loki shakes his head briefly. "Nothing. It was a difficult argument, that's all." He brushes Thor's hand away and takes a step back. "Let's leave this place."

Thor watches him, obviously not content with the answer; but he doesn't argue for once and follows Loki up and out.

The Einherjar glance between themselves but eventually part to let them pass at each turn, and Loki feels the trick--the old, old trick--ready to fall apart at the slightest snag.

It always feels more fragile when he's next to Thor. Thor _does_ belong where he is, and walks with an unconscious certainty of it, confident in his right to be within these walls no matter the circumstances. Loki wonders whether the Einherjar would still part for him even if Loki weren't at his side.

He doubts whether, if their positions were reversed, they would let him pass without Thor at his.

He fights the urge to rub his fingers.

In the back of his mind, Loki thinks he was wrong. There is not _always_ Jotunheim.

Thor could never belong there. He would freeze in time without shape-shifter abilities of his own; Loki's brief forays into the realm have taught him that tinder is scarce there. And Thor would rage to be surrounded by frost giants--likely literally. There is no place for his brother in that world.

The only opportunity Loki might have in Jotunheim is alone.

Thor exhales heavily once they're out beneath the sky again. He even takes the news that he's to be confined to his quarters without too much grumbling, leaning over his balcony rail beside Loki and breathing the air in deep.

Mjölnir sits on the balcony as well, already there when they arrived. Thor doesn't seem surprised; Loki feels his skin crawl.  
  
  
The next time he can eke out an hour to himself, Loki goes to the treasury and gathers several of Draupnir's replicas, and gives them to those healers who overheard part of the argument between Odin and himself and left before they heard all of it.

The arm-rings that fall from Draupnir are a common gift in Asgard. Loki adds a tiny rune to each one he gives away so he'll know the correct healers in the future, if necessary.

He reads all he can find on Mjölnir in the library, decides that it isn't enough, and sneaks into Svartalfheim to learn more. The trip goes poorly; had he not disguised himself in his jotun skin and used a false name, Asgard would likely now be at war. He doesn't envy the Jotnar's diplomats in the coming days.

He doesn't conceal his hair, even though he knows it and his runtish stature are distinctions that will mark him out. Loki hopes viciously that Laufey recognizes the description, and realizes exactly who of his realm is twisting the knife in his chest, and seethes over it.  
  
  
He wears gloves constantly for years.

~

Things are eventually sorted out and spun about and twisted to form an approximate enough definition of the truth, and over time the matter fades and things settle to the way they normally are. The only enduring sign of change is now that he has Mjölnir, Thor is no longer given his own trainers. That is more than Odin will ask of his warriors.

Instead, he practices exclusively with Loki, and the Warriors Three, and the Lady Sif.  
  
  
The baths are some of the oldest parts of the palace. Originally a hot spring that was reshaped on a whim or a bet--the stories are old, and vary--it used to sit outside the original hall of Asgard and was later subsumed into it as the palace and the realm grew ever larger and grander. The stone walls of the changing room and bath hall have a heavy, pressing feel to them that even the throne room, a younger structure done in a far more ornate style, cannot match. The carvings that remain are so old they're only half visible, and the stones themselves are dark with a sheen of mist that never evaporates. The servants hate the constant cleaning the baths demand in order to prevent mold and always push the task off on the lowest of themselves; at least two have willingly climbed into Loki's bed in hopes of being set to work elsewhere. He did it for one, finding her what he assumed was a better position as one of the seamstresses who mend all the damage the Einherjar do to their clothing. He no longer remembers why; he must have been in a good mood that day.

At the entryway Fandral tries to charm--or more accurately, harangue--Sif into joining them. Volstagg spares him the loss of a hand or two by pointing out that he himself has a daughter who will eventually be Sif's age, and remarks that if **he** learned of her keeping such uncouth company, he would have to react appropriately; and then he begins cheerily listing all the gruesome tortures only a father would concoct.

By the time Fandral gives up and begs mercy, Sif has already shaken her head and walked off. Hogun doesn't bother saying anything; he simply trips Fandral into one of the baths.

"Ah, the drowned rat look," Loki grins as Fandral splutters to the surface. He slides into the water. "Is that the newest way to woo the trollops at the inns?"

Fandral sprawls back against the stone edge, conveniently kicking Hogun in the leg as he does. "You know me, prince--always on the leading edge of fashionable."

"More like falling off it, you mean," Volstagg corrects as he settles into the steaming water.

Fandral shrugs and sighs with the goodwill of a man who has accepted his companions' inability to understand his greatness.  
  
  
When Hogun leaves them, Fandral calls cheerily, "Give my regards to Lady Sif!"

Hogun's response is an equally pleasant and exceptionally obscene Vanir curse. Loki throws his head back laughing in surprise.

"I think I've annoyed him," Fandral remarks, leaning on the edge of the bath and watching the other god depart.

He shrugs soon, and sinks back into the water. "Ah, well. I'll apologize later, I suppose."

Loki snickers again.

He knows that Fandral's friends dislike the aspect the god takes on in his presence, so he encourages it whenever the mood pleases him. He disregarded Volstagg as a potential bodyguard not long after the older god wed, and he has no use for those who're too serious to enjoy a bit of fun in their lives.

Though Thor is comfortable in their presence. His brother has spoken little, but he's leaning against the rim of the bath with his eyes closed, a small, relaxed smile on his face. So a few moments later, Loki nods and tells Fandral, "Perhaps for the best."  
  
  
Volstagg departs not long after, drawn from their presence by the same domestic bliss that made Loki cast the god from his considerations of the future. He still enjoys Volstagg's wit--sometimes, although when the god turns it toward him it's always sharper than Fandral dares. But Volstagg has a wife and children whom he adores, and Loki cannot count on him to lay down his life if it means losing them. He doesn't particularly doubt the warrior's loyalty to Asgard and so to its future king; but he doesn't plan to take chances, either.

With Volstagg gone, Loki shifts into the opened space, aware that it will look strange to continue soaking so close to Thor when it's no longer a necessity.

His brother watches him as he goes. But then he turns forward and slumps deeper into the water.  
  
  
Fandral later wipes the sweat away from his eyes and prepares to depart. "Will I see you at the drinking hall tonight, Prince Loki?"

He wrings out his hair and adds, "We could test whether the drowned rat look is still a bit too new for the ladies to appreciate."

Loki snorts and shakes his head. "No. The queen's requested my presence to go over the upcoming diplomatic excursion." He pauses, then cracks an eye open and arches a brow. "You might want to get in the night's entertainment early, if possible--I may have need to call on you regarding some of the finer details."

"You would, wouldn't you," Fandral drawls resignedly; but he makes himself keep smiling as he says it, so Loki just chuckles and shakes his head again.

"Merely jesting," he promises, waving him off. "Have fun."

Fandral bows and departs. Loki folds his arms behind his head and closes his eyes again, and thinks vaguely of leaving himself. If he spends too long in the baths' heat, it leaves him overly flushed and slow to react.

But his muscles still ache from Volstagg's relentless sparring this afternoon. So he puts it off for a while longer, currently content.

"Did I scare them away?" Thor asks.

His question is matter-of-fact. The other two pools have steadily emptied while their group remained, and no one else has come in since.

Loki shakes his head. "Doubtful," he promises. "They're used to your presence. Besides, Volstagg may prefer food and Fandral wenches, but they're all absurdly fond of battle. You wouldn't send them running."

The water ripples as Thor shifts. "Good," he murmurs. "I like your friends."

A stray bead of sweat trickles past his ear and down his neck, and for a moment Loki reads a clear threat in those words.

Thor could still easily take what he wants, especially from him. Loki was not the one who made friends: that was Thor.

Thor was the charismatic one, the one who inspired loyalty simply by being himself. Loki is the one who builds alliances, who inveigles tolerance and bribes with calculated largesse, and all his gains are credited against the future power that one day will--should--fall to him.

Loki is cunning; but Thor is still the charismatic one. It's only that no one's been willing to get close enough to discover it.

Yet, since Mjölnir allied with him, nearly all Thor's berserker fits have been focused where they belong: on the battlefield, against enemies. In a few more centuries the Aesir may feel only unease in his presence--and unease is a surmountable impediment to trust.

Thor will always be able to take what he wants, if he's given enough of a chance.

Loki brushes the sweat aside and tries to push the concern away as easily. This is his brother, after all. Thor is straightforward. He states what he thinks and feels and wants directly. Loki is simply so used to ulterior motives that he even ascribes them where they are not.

Where he thinks they are not. Where he hopes....

"Good," Loki says. "They're your friends too." _If they know what's best for them_.

He'll part with Hogun and Sif easily enough. Loki would even appreciate being relieved of the burden of their company. Volstagg would be a loss, but he's too much a friend of Fandral's to be a permanent one--at worst, he would be a shared terrain.

Fandral is a piece he's not willing to lose lightly; but with luck and skill, he won't have to.

Thor rarely defeats him in board games, even when Loki gave him the handicap of playing fair. And he no longer does that.

"They don't use your name," Thor adds.

Loki blinks, then frowns and tilts his head up to give him a curious look. "Of course they do. You just heard them."

"Not without your title," Thor replies.

"Of course not," Loki says, still giving him an odd look. Thor only curves his lips in response, his arms draped along the edge of the bath.

Loki looks at that small, almost imperceptible smile on the corners of Thor's mouth, and feels the chill of an old memory he doesn't want to recall crawling up his back.

He glances away instead, to the long careless stretch of Thor's arms. There are more scars there now than the last time Odin sent them into battle--Loki thinks with a flash of irritation that the healers aren't even _trying_ anymore--and his gaze catches on one that snakes across Thor's arm and over to his chest before becoming half-hidden by the strands of his hair floating in the hot water. Several drift and cling to his throat when Thor tilts his head--

Loki catches himself with a shallow inhale.

He closes his eyes and presses his head against his arms once more, sinking deeper into the water to hide any change in the rise and fall of his chest.

He waits tensely for Thor to speak. If he only had the sense to keep his eyes to his brother's face, he could have seen the confusion surely developing there in time to stop.

If he only had the sense to keep his eyes to Thor's face, there wouldn't be a reason for it to develop in the first place.

"What's Fandral like in bed?" Thor asks, and Loki makes a noise of startled surprise.

He gets a hold of himself and shakes his head, still not opening his eyes. "There are **many** opinions on that subject," he answers with a half-smirk. "More flattering than not, I suppose, if you exclude the outliers of the obviously jilted and his own bragging."

"I asked you," Thor replies. His voice is starting to take on an edge.

Loki blinks, frowns, and then tries to dissipate the tension with a snort.

"Not being a woman, I wouldn't know." He arches an eyebrow as high as possible. "You're free to find out, if you wish; there must be a dress _some_ where in Asgard that can be made to fit you. The beard might cause some trouble. Perhaps a veil...."

He's not surprised when Thor throws a handful of water at him.

Loki shakes his head and wipes the water from his face, and watches Thor's own through his fingers long enough to determine that his brother is only fleetingly annoyed and not actually angry. Then he closes his eyes again.

"What about Sif?" Thor asks shortly afterward.

Loki is still trying to invent an excuse to leaving the baths, but he abandons the process and raises another eyebrow at that. "What of her?"

"They still let me on the training grounds," Thor retorts. "You've been supporting her."

"'Supporting,'" Loki says disagreeably. "I just made a few people stop refusing to let her try, so we could finally see if she was going to get killed or not."

"You **know** she's Heimdall's sister," Thor says vexedly.

Thor himself was the one who gave Loki that particular bit of information recently--the step-siblings were raised in different houses with significant years between them, and the knowledge isn't common. Loki is still trying to decide how best to use it to damage his brother's friendship with Heimdall without letting Thor know it's by his doing.

The water ripples again as Thor shifts more sharply. "You should barely be tolerating her presence."

Loki rubs a palm over his eyes, wiping away water and sweat and growing frustration with his brother's odd sulking. He shrugs. "It was a favor."

A surprising one. One night Fandral drew him away to a table in the tavern's corner instead of one of the central ones they regularly took, and his face was far more serious than normal. For a brief moment Loki thought the god was going to try to assassinate him. 

He certainly didn't expect Fandral to spend his first real request to Loki on Sif, not when they both knew it would change the balance between them permanently: from now on Loki would be munificent, and Fandral would be obligated.

"...For Fandral?" Thor asks evenly.

Loki catches himself before he can frown this time.

Thor is straightforward, not simple. Loki reminds himself once again not to fall into the trap of conflating the two; if he underestimates his brother too much, he risks losing Asgard to him.

"Yes," he replies casually.

"Hrn," Thor mutters. "So you don't have any plans for her?"

Loki shrugs again. "She'll join the Valkyries eventually, I'm sure. I'd rather not get entangled with one of them."

"That's not an answer," Thor says belligerently. "Do you want anything from her?"

Loki blows a stray strand of hair from his forehead with an exasperated noise, and starts to snap out 'No.'

Then he thinks of the forced smile of gratitude on Sif's face that didn't reach her eyes that first day on the training grounds--Fandral was gripping her vambrace behind her back, not realizing that Loki saw him doing it--and almost considers 'Yes.'

And then he scowls and makes a dismissive gesture.

"She's too difficult," he says with finality, dropping his arm back to the stone rim and letting his hand trail in the water. Loki settles his head more comfortably. "I prefer my women easy. And as you said, she's Heimdall's kin."

After a moment Thor snorts; but it's a strangely cold noise. "Good," he murmurs.

Loki starts to rub his eyes again, and then changes his mind and tilts his head up to glare his frustration at Thor instead.

His breath catches in his throat when he meets Thor's gaze.

That imperceptible, unsettling smile on Thor's face widens at the sound. The expression in his eyes as he stares at Loki doesn't fit the humid, stultified air of the baths--it's so sharp, so hungry, as though if there weren't the short stretch of water between them Loki would already be sprawled out beneath him and half-devoured.

A very different shiver works its way up his spine, and his response is reflexive. Loki drops his head languorously to the side and flicks his hand up from the water to gesture him closer. He is the crown prince and his free time is not to be spent wastefully or pettily, so anyone who cares to grumble about his other bedmates would be better served getting on their knees and making themselves worth his--

Then he jerks and stills as he remembers that this is not one of his trysts, this is his brother. This is _Thor_.

Thor, who's pushed away from his seat and moving closer.

Loki's hand hits the stone edge awkwardly and he shoves himself up, scrabbling out of the bath. Thor halts in the middle of the pool and Loki keeps his face turned away, not wanting to see the recrimination there. He's harshly aware of his nudity, of Thor's own, of the way his cock is plumper than it should be.

Loki keeps his head down and casts about for something to say as he strides away--if he leaves without speaking it'll look like he's fleeing, and that will damn him even more.

He's out of the room before he can think of anything and ends up having fled anyway.

His sweaty and dirt-stained clothes have been removed for laundering and fresh ones are laid in their place. Loki dries as swiftly as possible, dresses while still half-damp, and carries his armor out instead of trying to fumble it on with Thor so close.

He should have left sooner. He **knew** he should have; he knows what being in that heat does to him. It makes him slow, makes him sluggish, makes him think he's seeing or hearing things that obviously aren't there, that could never be. It makes him careless. It makes him stupid.

He knows better than to look at Thor. He's known for years and years and more not to look at Thor except at his face, not to think of him, not to even consider any gods for his bed who bear him a passing resemblance after that one time ground in how pathetic it was. He knows better. He is a fool.

Thor is his brother, and Loki has not come this far toward the throne to lose it all by revealing himself a monster at the core.

. . . Only Thor is not his brother, not even by half.

They share no blood, no kin, no ancestors, nothing. Loki is a known changeling under this roof, some ill-birthed Jotnar monstrosity, a runt or a half-breed or something else--he doesn't know what, doesn't know why this skin feels more natural than the one from the times he's gone down to the Casket of Ancient Winters, and doesn't know how to find out without giving himself away--and Thor is an Aesir.

Loki hisses out a breath and shakes his head hard, pretending he's tossing aside his damp bangs but actually rejecting the very same truths he's insisting on.

Thor must be his brother. He **must**.

If Thor is not his brother, then his mother is not his mother. And Odin is not his father; and he has no claim to the throne, and no place or right to be in Asgard.

\--If Thor weren't his brother, he wouldn't be able to aggravate him this much.

Loki chokes on a snort and then breaks out laughing.

Relief spills through him along with it, because this argument is irreversible. If Thor were not his brother, both his presence and the lack of it wouldn't be such a damnable, incessant irritation in Loki's life.

Loki laughs until his sides ache, and then he braces an arm against his stomach and continues up to his rooms. If Thor leaves the baths before then, Loki never sees or hears him.  
  
  
Later, he tells himself that either way it doesn't matter. They may not have been birthed as brothers, but they were raised as brothers, and the raising is what matters. Thor may think they're blood, and Loki may know they're fosterage, but they're linked together by kin-bonds all the same.

And Thor is an Aesir, and he would never condone the breaking of kin ties.

Everyone knows it's the monsters that will usher in the Fimbul-winter, not the gods.

~

The tedium of life in Asgard is epicyclical, revolving around smaller constants: sleeping, waking, brokering endless petty quarrels and diplomatic bickering, sparring, drinking. Riding out in battles with Thor by his side and occasionally turning on him. Forays into other realms to break the monotony. Seeing how far he can tease Sif before someone has to hold her back from punching him, and seeing who actually does so instead of pretending they didn't overhear. Evening meals with his family and usually guests as well.

This evening the meal is delayed.

Their mother has been summoned to Midgard by unexpected and bountiful sacrifices, but left word that she would return as soon as she may and that the day's visiting envoys are already being entertained. Their father sends no notice, but he normally reviews the realms with Heimdall before joining them, and Jotunheim is in such unrest of late that it's no surprise the discussion is dragging on.

Loki could have delayed himself; two of the bodyguards for the envoys have a clear grudge between them, and he wants to learn more about it so he knows exactly how to incite them into a contest of insulting verses later. But then he learns that Thor is already in the hall, and so Loki joins him instead to keep him from getting restless. He brings a game board along, unsure how long they'll be waiting.

Thor is losing, but only by one move. Loki is too bored to cheat, thinking more about the bodyguards than the game. His brother uses his distraction to his advantage.

The chain attached to Thor's ankle slithers along the stone as he moves his next piece. It's invisible--Loki won't tolerate outsiders seeing it, and all the servants know to be cautious when walking between Thor's seat and the throne--but he hasn't bothered to mask the noise. Normally the hall is too loud for it to be heard.

And when they're alone like this, with only the occasional guard or servant passing around them, Loki likes the sound. It means Thor can't leave him, and can't harm him, either.

Thor prods his leg under the table. "I'm going to win if you don't start paying attention," he warns.

Loki hrumphs and reaches for the mead. He pours them both another cup, pushing Thor's across the table to him.

Thor takes it, but only taps the board. "Your turn," he reminds.

"Yes, yes."

"What's distracting you?" Thor asks.

"You are right now," Loki answers, arching an eyebrow as he takes a piece in hand. "You're going to have to cheat more subtly than _that_."

Thor makes a face before taking a drink. "You know what I mean."

"Nothing is," he replies, since Thor would tell him not to cause trouble by riling the bodyguards.

"Liar."

Loki just smirks, and finally turns his attention to the game.

He catches the trap Thor's set for him: had he moved to the spot that should have made his brother lose in five more turns, he himself would've been taken in four. Loki makes a noise of grudging approval and changes tactics. Thor grins at the praise, even though it means his loss is now inevitable.

"I told you," Thor says, draining the last of his cup and still smiling.

"If you _hadn't_ , you might have won," Loki reproaches.

His brother shrugs. "You weren't paying attention. I didn't want to beat you like that."

Loki rolls his eyes. "A win is a win. Don't sabotage yourself."

Thor snerks. "You should take your own advice first."

He frowns and glances up. "What do you mean?"

"You do that all the time," Thor replies. "You ruin all your best plans so you won't follow them through."

Loki pulls back from the board. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Thor exhales exasperatedly. "Yes you do. You always wreck your plans so they never amount to more than tricks," his brother tells him, "because you're afraid to be who you really are."

Loki's eyes widen.

Then his hands curl into fists. "I-- _restrain_ myself," he spits. "Because I am _responsible_." He scowls. " **One** of us must be."

The look Thor gives him cuts deep, because it is all pity and affection.

His brother reaches out and smooths Loki's hair back. He says gently, "Weapons don't have to be responsible."

Loki jolts.

"You aren't--" he starts, and then he looks past Thor to the chain running from the throne to his ankle, because now that Mjölnir answers to him alone Odin doesn't trust his brother in the presence of important outsiders, and can't finish the lie. Loki licks his lips and says, "I'm not--"

Thor drops his hand from Loki's head and cups his fist instead, rubbing a thumb against the black fingernails he's been passing off as the backlash of a miscast spell for the past decade.

Loki jerks away so violently that his bench skids across the floor. He scrambles to his feet, tripping up against it as he glares at Thor. "I **am not** \--"

Loki clenches his fists as that lie sticks in his throat as well, and hisses, " _Be silent_ , **berserker**."

Thor's eyes go wide as the curse spills off Loki's tongue and over him. He tries to speak, and then rubs violently at his mouth and works his jaw, struggling to shake the spell loose. Loki stares at him, his heart pounding ferociously in his ears, his nails drawing blood from his palms.

Does he know? He must, what else could that gesture mean. Thor knows. Thor _knows_.

Loki is going to find whoever told him and _kill them_.

Thor stops fighting the spell and narrows his eyes, a fist clenching on the table as he stares at him. Loki kicks free of the bench and turns away.

By the time others join them, Loki is seated farther down the table, sipping slowly from his cup and gripping it tight to keep his hand steady. Thor has come as close as the chain will allow and never takes his eyes away. Loki focuses on the other side of the room, but keeps Thor in his peripheral vision in case he rips free.

The game has been shoved aside. A servant clears away the board and the scattered pieces before straightening the plates, keeping on the far side of the table from Thor.

Their father soon makes Thor move, because the servers are tripping over the taut, invisible chain. Their mother glances between them, her brow furrowed.

In time she invents an excuse to pass behind Thor; and when she does, her eyes widen.

She gives Loki a quick, reproachful look, and he glances away. Frigga lays her fingers on Thor's shoulder, and Loki clenches the hand resting on his thigh as he feels his spell start to be undone. He doesn't fight back.

"Thank you," Thor tells her quietly, once he can. He still doesn't take his gaze from Loki.

Their mother squeezes his shoulder briefly and keeps moving, before others can notice what's occurred.  
  
  
Later, after the dinner is finished, Frigga asks him to join her. Loki knows he's going to be censured, but behind him he can hear the cuff around his brother's ankle being undone, and his mother's arm against his back feels like the sole protection standing between himself and Thor. He goes willingly.

When they reach her quarters, she only asks, "Why?"

Loki keeps moving, walking deeper into the room and putting distance between them. "We-- were arguing."

"You two argue often," Frigga replies calmly. "You're brothers. But you've never done something that cruel before, Loki. What happened between you?"

He bristles at the admonishment even as he knows it's true. Loki realizes he's pacing and forcibly stops, glaring down at the pool in the center of the room.

"Does he know about me?" he makes himself ask.

In the corner of his vision he sees his mother frown in genuine confusion, and for a few seconds some of the tension in his shoulders eases. He cannot comprehend how she thinks of him as a son and not an interloper in her realm, but she's never behaved otherwise.

Then she realizes what he's referring to, and says, "Ah."

His mother closes the distance between them. "I don't know. I haven't told him," she says. "Nor has your father. We promised; and we've held to that." She takes his hand. "But your brother is more observant than he's sometimes given credit for."

Frigga brushes her fingertips over his nails. Loki flinches at the touch, but doesn't pull away.

"The Jotnar envoys come each year to deliver their tribute," she says. "Thor has surely seen some before. And with your skills, there aren't many spells that could backlash significantly on you," his mother points out.

Frigga pauses for a moment, and then adds, "Or perhaps he's heard the stories of the unusual giant who's been causing so much trouble for Jotunheim, and sorted it out from there."

Loki jolts and takes a step back, but she doesn't release him.

"If you have a goal you're working toward, you need to share it with your father and I," Frigga says evenly, "so we can design backup plans and be ready in case of the worst. War is not something to enter into unprepared, especially when it's breaking long-standing treaties that favor us.

"But if you're doing this for some other reason...." She squeezes his hand. "You have nothing to prove, Loki. You are a son of Asgard. There is no question there and never will be."

The smile that flickers over his mouth is ugly and not what she deserves, but Thor's earlier words are still under his skin. "If so, why isn't my father here claiming the same?"

"This took some time to catch," Frigga tells him. She tilts her head and gives him a knowing look. "And when he did realize it, we agreed that you might be more inclined to listen and believe if the words came from me."

Loki snorts despite everything.

He presses a hand to his mouth a few moments later, muffling his laughter as it becomes less harsh and more genuine. Frigga raises an eyebrow pointedly, a smile tugging at her lips.

After a time, his laughter trails off. Loki keeps his hand over his mouth, and then lets out a long breath before smoothing his hair back.

"...I'm sorry," he mutters, dropping his hand to the side. "You're always being forced to go between us."

"This isn't unusual," Frigga tells him, and Loki looks up. "You are young, and have new ideas; and he is old, and has a marrow-deep familiarity of the alliances and treaties. This clash has been played out by Odin and his father before, and will be repeated by you and your heir in the future. But never forget, the root cause of your disagreements is that you're both trying to protect Asgard." She squeezes his hand again. "You two have a common goal. In time, you'll come to a compromise in your methods toward it."

Loki lets out another long breath.

In a part of his mind, he wonders how she can always convince him to agree with her arguments--it's a trick he would love to know, but after centuries of study it seems like she manages it by genuinely believing what she says, and he cannot imitate that.

Loki swallows, and nods, and clasps her hand back. "Thank you."

"Perhaps stop those trips, then," she replies, because she knows the need to get exact promises from him. "You are frustrating Heimdall to no end by managing to slip past him through the Bifrost."

Loki snickers and then catches himself and nods again. "I will."

Frigga gives him an admonishing look for the inappropriate mirth, but then pats the back of his hand and releases it.

"I won't ask you to apologize to Thor now," she says quietly, and Loki tenses. "But later, when things have calmed between you two, you should." His mother catches his gaze. "Your brother loves and trusts you, Loki. This will have hurt him badly."

Loki exhales through his teeth; but when she says nothing more, he at last looks down and nods once. "I will."

"Thank you," Frigga tells him.

Loki leaves her soon afterward. He finds the bodyguards later that night and puts on a glamour and goads them not just into an exchange of insults but into drawing weapons and attacking each other, and then slips away while others are trying to intercede. He feels no better afterward.  
  
  
He avoids his brother for a week, until he realizes Thor is evading him as well.

The recognition is startling. Thor is always, _always_ the one seeking him out--but now Loki doesn't see him even when he quits taking alternate routes and ensconcing himself among others. He has to go actively hunting before he finally comes across his brother in a far hall: the corridor overlooks the water and the Bifrost, and Loki never uses it.

Thor tenses once he glances back and catches sight of him. His brother's steps falter, and then he turns his head and looks away, out the windows.

Loki hesitates, feeling the reversal between them even more. Is this how he looks to Thor when he doesn't want him near?

He continues forward and falls into step beside him, but stops short of reaching out or letting their arms brush. Thor doesn't shift away, but he doesn't speak or look over either.

"I didn't think you'd take it this badly," Loki finally says. "I was just angry."

Thor clenches a hand.

Before Loki can reflexively distance himself, his brother forcibly relaxes it, rubbing his thumb hard against a finger.

". . . Don't do that again," Thor says hoarsely, still looking out the windows and not at him. "Don't be like Father and Mother."

Loki stumbles to a halt.

Thor pauses a step later, half-turning back to him. His gaze is fixed on Loki's shoulder, avoiding his eyes.

"--I'm sorry." Loki jerks closer, grabbing his brother's hand and biting his lip when Thor tenses under his touch. "I'm sorry, Thor. I'm sorry. I'll never do it again."

Thor looks up at his face, searching for deceit.

"Never again," he promises, folding his hands around Thor's own. "I swear."

Thor studies him for several more long moments; and then at last he nods.

He tilts into Loki a breath later, pressing his forehead to his shoulder.

Thor grips his side as his breath hitches, and Loki runs a hand over his hair and murmurs meaningless nonsense when shudders start to wrack through him.

"Not you, too," Thor manages, and the raw desperation in his voice makes Loki grip his hand until it aches. "Not you too, Loki. **_Promise_** me."

"Shh, brother," he soothes, rubbing the nape of Thor's neck. "I promise."

His brother lets out a shaky breath, interrupted by another wracking sob. He wraps his arms around Loki's waist and slumps against him.

Loki staggers, but then braces himself against the closest pillar and drapes an arm over Thor's shoulders. He keeps running his thumb along Thor's neck as he waits for his brother to regain his composure, both to comfort and to hide the fact that his hands are trembling.  
  
  
He leads Thor back to his room eventually. After Thor rinses his face and Loki brushes off the rest of his responsibilities for the day, they play board games and drink mead until evening, and then meet up with the Warriors Three and Lady Sif at a tavern and drink more mead and play more games and generally carouse until the owner throws them all out in aggravation. Thor sits right up against him at the table, his arm pressed to his brother's; and because his laughter is genuine, so is Loki's.

For a while they're nearly inseparable.

Loki gives all his free time to Thor, until it begins to wear at him. Until he begins to itch with the desire to travel and do as he pleases, and not be accountable to the expectations that he still thinks Thor would put on him, despite the fact that it's been nearly a millennia since Thor was much at all like the boy Loki is still trying to be a version of.

Or maybe that's simply the easiest excuse.

Loki has still told no one else about the pathways to the other realms; and despite his efforts to drive them apart, Thor continues to be too friendly with Heimdall. Loki has to choose between distancing himself from Thor again, or else telling him the secret and sacrificing his freedom and ability to escape and every contingency he's ever made that relies on the pathways: to choose between his brother, or himself.

And so distance creeps between them once more, and things eventually settle back to the way they normally are.


	2. To the 20th Century

For a long time, life in Asgard is consistent and monotonous. Little ever truly changes in the realm; it's so dull Loki can barely stomach it.

It feels as if he's trapped in an illusionary prison, waking each day to repeat the same actions in the same place based on the same small events. He loses track of time even more than usual, unfathomably _bored_ with it all.

And then on Midgard they begin worshipping new gods.  
  
  
Thor flinches again as Loki wraps the bandages around his arm, his jaw clenched tight against the shudders running through his frame. They aren't from the pain in his arm, a deep gash caused by Thor jerking still with a gasp in the midst of training and so allowing Loki to land a hit that never would have slid through his defense otherwise. The grove of Thor's that's being desecrated must have been impressive; normally the consequences don't last this long.

The destruction has been increasing lately, along with the severity of the results. Before, the humans just left in favor of their new god and rededicated their land or altars, a relatively painless if apparently disappointing loss.

But more often now there are broad purges, leaving swaths of gods struck feeble and furious through Asgard. Balder already helped Sif limp out of the training arena to see to the hard blow to the shoulder she took after sinking to her knees with a yell; and he was grimacing himself as they left. Freyja passed by not long after, making her way to the Bifrost to gather up those humans who chose to adhere to them rather than change their allegiance and were killed for it.

That, too, has been increasing of late.

"I gave them aid through ten storms," Thor hisses, as Loki winds the bandage around his arm. "Even in that shipwreck, I made sure Ran let their spoils reach land. And this is how they repay me?"

"Humans are fickle," Loki answers. He tucks the edge of the bandage in and casts a small spell, trying to ease the pain of the cut if not the rejection.

Thor has suffered the worst of the royal family, though Odin has had his fair share of clenched-teeth silences recently. Frigga hasn't been treated as bad as either of them--mostly her worshippers convert her shrines to their new goddess--but Loki still sometimes sees her shoulders jerk and her hands clench until the knuckles are white.

"It's spreading," Thor snarls. "That damned king. He's sent his slaves across the ocean and now even there they abandon me."

"Humans are fickle," Loki repeats. "Their leaders are forcing the conversions for trade reasons. Once the empires crumble, their sway will fade as well."

"Of course," Thor says, with shocking coldness in his voice. "The rulers always force their ways on the rest. But at least Odin's adherents didn't kill my own--"

He cuts off, grinding his teeth. Loki's hands are still.

Things have not been the same between he and his brother since the night Loki stripped him of his voice in a fit of fury.

Thor no longer speaks to him as freely as he once did. They still end up in arguments, but these days when the tension reaches a certain pitch, Thor forces himself to bend his neck and give in, either agreeing with Loki or at least ceasing to argue.

Part of Loki can't deny the lick of pleasure it always brings him to have his older brother--forever more confident and more comfortable among their friends and increasingly stronger than him--bite his tongue and accede to Loki's greater cunning. Especially because most of the time, Loki is either right or can make it appear as if he knew what he was doing all along by the end.

Part of Loki hates the reminder that the distance he was striving to create between them for so long has finally developed.

At least no one else was in hearing. "It's temporary," Loki reminds. "When the trade routes grow obsolete and he doesn't answer enough of their petty prayers, they'll throw him over too in favor of yet another." He shrugs a shoulder. "Perhaps they'll even see the error of their ways and return to you."

"Why should I listen then?" Thor says harshly. "They kill my friends, break my idols, butcher my oxen and let the meat rot without giving me a feast. The land he gave me used to be so sacred he forbade anyone to piss on it, and now his descendants let it be defiled and swallowed it into their farm." He clenches his good hand, glaring out over Loki's shoulder.

"I would sympathize if I could," Loki says at last.

He has not been suffering the way the rest of his family has. Humans never sanctified places or things for him, never crafted rituals for his worship or propitiation. His shrines are small and often hidden, his sacrifices brutal and desperate, his prayers intense and cornered.

He always answers, usually to the supplicator's desire; there is a tremendous amount of power to be had in such potent need. But he's still rarely called on compared to the rest of his family.

Thor snorts.

"You should be glad," he mutters. "I'd rather be you. You haven't had to bear this."

"So I should be grateful I was never considered worthy of devotion in the first place?" Loki retorts, pulling his hand away and straightening.

"Is it better to have something and then lose it?" Thor replies.

Loki suddenly feels unsure if this conversation is still about human worshipers, or about something deeper and more threatening that stands between them.

"I wouldn't know," is all he says.

Thor is silent in response, glaring past him. Loki holds out his hand to his brother, noticing as he does that one of the guards is grimacing on the walkway, pressing a fist to his chest. "Come along, you're finished with practice for the day."

Thor grunts in the back of his throat and takes his hand. His palm is clammy in Loki's grip, for all that he pretends his worshipers' betrayal has no deeper effect on him than sparking his anger.

~

It's mystifying, the gods that humans chose: Tyr, a random palace guard; Sif and Balder, strong warriors but petty nobles; Frey and his sister, mere hostages from the Vanir raised in Asgard; quite a few otherwise unremarkable Einherjar and Valkyries. Eventually one mortal on Midgard takes it on himself to write their story and takes significant liberties with it.

Loki slips into the man's home after he's assassinated and takes the pages of his work, bringing it back for the palace library. The humans may have the story wrong, but their beliefs still lend power, even to the unworthy.

And it is, at least, _some_ thing to do.

He works on recopying the damaged pages in his free time, teasing out the words rendered illegible by wet boots and stray blood drops. He has little such time of late, but it's still more than it should be, since Odin refuses to admit any weakness if he can sufficiently cover it up. Loki and Frigga split duties between themselves when he cannot.

His mother finds him in the library one evening, scowling at a crumpled page as he works out the lacunae in the Midgard dialect.

"Still at it?" she asks, setting another lamp on the desk.

Anyone else, and he would take it as an insult on his skill and respond accordingly. Since it's her, Loki correctly reads the implied concern.

"I'll stop after this page," he answers. "Is it that late?"

"Not terribly," she replies. "But Thor's sent back word. The Vanaheim borders remain quiet, but there are rumors about Muspellheim."

"There are always rumors about Muspellheim," Loki mutters, but he sets down his quill. "Are he and Hogun headed there?"

"I asked him to come home," Frigga answers. A wry lift touches her voice. "Which he will, after undoubtedly going the long way around."

Loki laughs under his breath, and weighs down the papers before pushing out of his chair and taking the lamp. He falls in step beside her as they depart the library. "I'll rest for a few hours and join them."

"Thank you," she says quietly, some of the concern in her tone easing.

The last locale in Midgard where Thor was most revered has officially adopted the other gods. His brother's suffering has been intermittent for years as the laws tighten around those who were formerly allowed to worship him in secret, as his consecrated things die off or are rededicated. Their parents worry; Loki plans to cajole the island's land spirits to nudge the volcano into bursting again, as soon as enough time has passed that no one will immediately look to him as the cause.

When he and Frigga enter the empty corridor connecting to the library, Loki glances around and decides this is the best place.

"Father?" he asks, lowering the lamp.

"Still refusing to enter the Odinsleep," she answers, her mouth tight.

Loki nods and says no more. They have argued on the topic before; this is one of the rare times Loki agrees unreservedly with Odin.

Asgard appears weak enough to her enemies right now without losing the All-father's presence. If one of the realms seized that chance to shift borders or declare war, he and Thor would have to enter battle--and when Thor is still being stricken by his worshipers' eradication, that would be too dangerous. Even with Mjölnir to channel his berserker furies, he could turn on the Aesir in the midst of his pain.

Even with Mjölnir to defend himself, he could be injured by a lucky and well-timed strike.

"Perhaps it will be over soon," he says instead. "They're still speaking of us. Several generations more, and we'll be restored to power."

"Perhaps," she agrees, sounding doubtful. "I worry about them blending the prophecies."

Loki snorts in the back of his throat. "One man," he says dismissively. "A dead one. And his writing is so puerile it's barely fit for a children's story. Claiming Ragnarök will begin with the death of a god of light and life would be trite enough--but he didn't even use a rational one, Frey or Thor. He chose Balder." Loki shakes his head.

He almost adds _It makes as much sense as my birthing Father's horse_ , but bites back the words at the last moment.

It never fails to disturb him that the Midgardian tales always mark him out as Jotnar, even if they've mistaken Laufey for female: a spark of truth among the mess of falsity and garbled stories, one he couldn't squelch before he realized that continuing to try was suspicious and he began making a joke of it instead.

His mother laughs lightly--but the sound is off, the smile in her voice strained. "Does it offend your storyteller's sensibilities that much?"

Loki frowns and glances over. Frigga's face is pale.

He stops short and reaches out to brace her. "Guards!"

"No," Frigga says, raising a hand. "It isn't that. I'm just...tired." She tries for another smile. "It takes time to readjust."

Loki keeps his hand on her arm. "You should make them return what they gave you," he says in frustration. "Thor is."

His mother merely shakes her head again. "I don't wish my things back defiled," she replies. "Freyja's preserving those who die for my honor; that's enough."

When the guards arrive, Loki sends them to her quarters to have the servants prepare her bed and something to replenish her. He walks her back himself.

"You shouldn't worry," he insists as they move through the halls by the shortest route he knows, since concern is still pinched into her features. "Humans can't rewrite what's been determined by a seeress. They don't have _that_ much sway."

"Yes," his mother murmurs.

He doesn't like the way she's still clenching her hands, rubbing a thumb agitatedly along one finger. Loki rests his palm comfortingly over them.

"Balder doesn't even have a brother," he adds, and her eyes close.

"--True," she agrees. "You're right. There's no reason to fret over what doesn't exist."

Frigga gives him another brief smile as they arrive and one of her servants opens the door at the sound of their voices. "Thank you."

Loki frowns to himself as Fulla begin to fuss over her despite Frigga's insistence that she is not ill. He forces it away and nods when she turns to bid him farewell.

Loki eschews rest and packs a few days' worth of supplies instead, and has Heimdall send him to the portion of Vanaheim where Thor is.  
  
  
His brother sits by the camp's fire, playing with a Vanir puzzle-sphere as Loki makes his way to him. At his arrival Hogun rouses from where he was sleeping on the fire's other side, gripping his mace and pushing up.

"It's my brother," Thor assures him.

"You can rest," Loki replies, dropping his satchel by Thor. "I wish to speak to Thor."

Hogun nods once before lying down, his back to the fire and them. Thor gives Loki a wry look, but rises to his feet and follows him a distance away from the camp.

"I know that scowl," Thor smiles. "You were fussing with that edda again. Did Mother send you?"

"No," Loki replies, for no real reason save that when anyone begins to know him too well he lies to muddy their perception. "She mentioned there were rumors about Muspellheim, so I decided to come ensure this trip was scouting only."

Thor continues to look at him as if he sees through the lie, but doesn't argue. "I doubt it's a sincere threat," he says instead, the rest of the words unspoken.

"But best to be certain," Loki agrees.

The Bifrost is the strongest bridge in Asgard; but the prophecies have decreed it will break when the sons of Muspell ride over it.

It's another disconcerting near-match between Asgard and Midgard. The only difference is that the dead poet wrote that nothing can be relied on when the sons of Muspell go on the warpath: giving them more weight, and more threat, than the Aesir prophecies.

Frigga's concerns are not unreasonable. The more the humans begin to solidify their interpretations of the gods' lives and fates, the more the Aesir notice echoes reverberating in their realm.

Loki had originally intended to return the poet's pages to Midgard at some point, after he finished copying them. Now, having read as far as he has, he plans to burn both sets afterward.

Thor pauses and frowns. "What's troubling you?"

"Nothing," Loki dismisses.

This time Thor does not let it pass. "Liar," he replies knowingly. "What is it? --Has Father gone into the Odinsleep?"

"Of course not," Loki retorts. "That is the _last_ thing we need right now."

"He cannot put it off forever," Thor says quietly. "Is that it? You fear it's coming soon regardless?"

Loki frowns sharply, his gaze narrowing. Does Thor think him incapable of holding Asgard until Odin wakes again? "What do you mean, 'fear'?"

\--Is it concern for their realm, or an investigation of exploitable weaknesses?

Loki is not the only one in Asgard aware of how he has _not_ been affected by the humans' abandonment. He knows there are whispers.

As the decades pass, it marks him out more and more as different from the rest of the royal family. The Midgard tales about him compound the damage, with their knowledge of his Jotnar blood and their claims of him as a dangerous and ultimately treasonous ally.

They are all things his brother could use, if he chooses to contest Loki's right to the throne.

Thor's expression turns frustrated. "Why do you always--"

Then he draws a breath, and shifts slightly so his body is no longer tilted toward Loki's own.

"I did not intend insult, Brother," Thor says, neutral etiquette replacing earlier familiarity. "I was only referring to concern for our father's health."

"Of course," Loki accepts, because they are still too close to where Hogun is. "Yes. I've been awake too long. He feels he can delay it longer, and we must assume he knows best."

Thor nods. "You should sleep," he replies. "I won't trade shifts with Hogun for a while yet. You have time for rest."

Loki nods himself. "I will."

He settles by the fire, out of immediate range of Hogun's mace, head resting uncomfortably on the satchel. He doesn't want to drift into anything deeper than a light doze.

He still doesn't know if Thor is aware he's a jotun.

If Thor knows that they are yet--that they will always be--competitors for the throne.

It's another consequence of that hasty curse. With this strained reserve between them, Loki cannot bring himself to make Thor explain that night. He's afraid to hear Thor state what he meant by deliberately pointing out Loki's blackened nails, a demarcation caused by Thor's own damned hammer in the first place.

What if Thor isn't certain? What if he thought it was a rumor? If Loki confirms his heritage, it may be the spark that spurs Thor to reclaim what is rightfully his in Asgard, especially given all he's lost in Midgard.

And if Thor doesn't know--if the gesture was merely one of Thor's usual touches that Loki attached excessive meaning to--then if Loki exposes his secret this coolness between them may ossify to enmity.

If Thor might ever once have overlooked what Loki really is, he hardly has reason to now. He has so much to gain by denouncing it instead.

Thor resumes his seat and picks up the abandoned puzzle, tossing it lightly from hand to hand as he stares into the fire. He ceases eventually when Hogun stirs at the soft noise.

Loki does not sleep at all.  
  
  
The rumors from Muspellheim are indeed small things: a few rabble-rousers who, most conveniently, are found dead once the counter-news begins to spread that the Aesir have heard of their talk and are about to take how long it's gone unchecked as Surtr's declaration of war.

After Loki confirms that the corpses belong to the correct instigators he discards their guises, glad to no longer bear Hogun and Thor's silent judgment of his preference for concealment and ruses rather than open confrontation. He should have sent them back to Asgard and done this part himself.

Once they've returned home, Loki immediately begins the venture he planned out during their time in Muspellheim: investigating Balder.

~

Balder's heritage turns out to be a much more tangled puzzle than Loki expected, beginning with the fact that the god was not born to the parents who raised him.

Loki unearths the go-between who facilitated the adoption, and finds she was a proxy for another noble goddess who had an affair with a servant. The servant was sent away to a distant farm in Asheim, and died several years later in a rockslide. Loki finds no other children he sired, legitimate or otherwise.

The noble goddess has one legitimate daughter, a legitimate son who was stillborn, and no other illegitimate children. She was stricken with an illness a few centuries ago that left her barren. When Loki starts investigating Balder's foster parents, he discovers they too are both sterile.

He begins to suspect someone has been here before him.

Balder's foster mother took a spear to the belly in a battle a millennia or so back that left her unable to have more children. His father had an accident with a horse several decades ago that was either so humiliating or so obscene Loki cannot ferret out more than vague references, not even after bribing all the current and past servants and after a prolonged seduction of the god's mistress that was, frankly, some of his best work. He acquired so much useful information for insulting verses he's giddy with it.

He does learn that prior to Balder's foster-father's castration, he sired two illegitimate daughters, both living with their individual mothers--and that both their mothers were afflicted by the same sickness that left Balder's birth mother barren, with the same consequence. All three goddesses were treated by Eir herself, a close friend of Frigga's.

Neither bore or fostered sons prior to the disease. Neither have fostered any afterward nor seem inclined to do so. The god also sired one illegitimate son, who died some years back in a drunken brawl despite Eir's attempts to staunch and stitch his wounds.

Loki knows his father with the depth of a respected enemy. He spots Odin's hand--four steps removed--in the god's death, and leaves the matter there.

The dead son's mother currently has no husband nor lover, but she's one of the Valkyries that Odin sends to battlefields most frequently. Loki assumes her life cord will be nudged into the Norns' shears soon enough one way or another, and lets that matter lie as well.

So. Every potential path for Balder to acquire a brother--legitimately, illegitimately, even one of only half-blood or fosterage or a step-brother--is obliterated, thoroughly and ruthlessly. Only one question remains.

What prophecy do Frigga and Odin know of that he doesn't, if they already saw to this centuries before Midgard began writing its variants of Ragnarök?

Loki suspects that solving that puzzle is going to take even longer than this one did. And this one took years.

It could've gone quicker if all his sources of information hadn't begun disappearing soon into the proceedings. It undoubtedly would have taken longer if Loki hadn't been able to twist his actions into an apparent investigation of Freyja's trysts, though that had the unfortunate consequence of bittering his relations with most of the Vanir living in Asgard.

Since there's clearly no need to move immediately, Loki pulls back and lets the matter lie fallow for a time.

He never uses the guise he wore during his investigations again. That wandering poet from the far north end of Asheim has left Asgard for good, before a third pawn of his father could start a potentially deadly fight with him in an ale hall. Loki fakes a death in a rockslide on a mountain pass and takes away the quiet lesson that either Odin was far enough removed he didn't see through Loki's glamour, or else that his own magic has improved to the point that Odin's scrutiny couldn't uncover him.

Or that his father decided the matter was grave enough to be worth filicide.

But Loki cannot bring himself to consider that possibility, even if cold logic tells him he should. It's Ragnarök, after all. And he and Odin do not get along well.

And yet. It hits too close to the ever-attendant fear caged within his chest and blazoned on his marked nails, the silent threat contained in his brother's existence. Loki cannot bring himself to consider it.

So he steps back, and turns to other things, until enough time has passed that the Aesir forget anyone was asking questions about Balder the Brave.

~

In time, Midgard settles into its new religions. The Aesir still exist in stories and some markers, in poems and tapestries and engraved shields and weapons, and they're even still worshiped in a few places, with altered rituals and decidedly less devotees. But the flood of conversion has stemmed; the gods and goddesses affected finally begin to breathe again, and to forget the long centuries' aches.

It allows Loki time to himself once more.

He starts to revisit the pathways between the realms, reassuring himself that they're still available and known only to him. It's an old and familiar task: the realms change over time, and as similarities between Asgard's landscape and wherever the path connects to shift and fall away, the paths themselves dissolve. Loki discovered this long ago, and made it a habit to keep up with them.

But the last few centuries have demanded so much of his time and presence. At the worst points, it was impossible for him to check more than the few paths closest to the palace; to disappear for longer would cause his absence to be noticed, which could potentially lead to Heimdall being told to seek him out.

The god may not see Loki as he goes through those routes, but he would spy him disappearing at the mouth of one--and that would be the end of everything. Of the pathways, of his escape plans involving them; probably of his life in Asgard, given that he's been hiding these threats for so long.

There's no possibility he could convince Odin he discovered the opening just at the moment he was spotted. His family knows he's found a way to slip past Heimdall to the other realms. They'll easily connect the facts.

Exile would be the most merciful option given to him on discovery--and if Loki were Asgard's king, it would not be the option he gave himself. So for the last few centuries he gambled, risking his plans becoming outdated in an effort to preserve them at all.

In the intervening centuries, fifteen paths have disappeared.

It's nearly all of them.

Two remain: one to an icy cavern in Jotunheim a long day's trek up to the nearest dwelling, and one to the empty and poisonous plains of Svartalfheim.

The latter is almost impossible to reach on Asgard's side. The rocks are so near the Bifrost that they have to be approached at night to prevent him from being seen. He only found the path because he crashed a ship into the outcrop during a storm and was looking to escape the rain and the sight of the waterfall--though he did at least win the young and foolish bet to prove he wasn't a coward that had him out in that forsaken area in the first place.

Loki throws himself into the search for more paths, driven by a dogged terror that the openings have finally been discovered by Odin and deliberately sealed.

The doom is no less even if Loki's use of them remains unknown. He's lost the safety net he needs now more than ever, now that he and Thor rarely speak to each other save in the company of mutual friends. The two paths still extant are useless: there's no protection he could find in a realm where the very air cannot be breathed for long, or a realm where he will most likely be brutally executed if Laufey ever discovers who he is and all he's done to ruin Jotunheim.

He eventually finds two more pathways. The first is useless too: another entrance to Hel. Loki flees it as soon as he recognizes the shore.

The second _might_ go to Midgard. It opens up to a wide, unfamiliar ice field, and Loki only knows it isn't Jotunheim because it's too warm. A chill has been sweeping along Midgard recently as Sol punishes its inhabitants for the past centuries' revocation of faith, but there's still no comparison between the two realms.

Loki sketches what he can and returns home without traveling far, unwilling to be gone for long. He doesn't have the freedom he did when younger: there are even more claims on his time now, lessons replaced with council meetings and petitions and endless diplomatic work.

If kingship is going to be anything like the duties of a crown prince, some days Loki wishes he could abdicate the whole damned thing.

Some days he gazes at Mjölnir hanging from his brother's belt and remembers the feeling of its energy sizzling through his veins, bright and chaotic and _alive_ and **free** , until Thor notices and stares back.

In those moments, Loki eventually catches his brother watching him with an expression he can never fully parse: a mix of wariness and understanding and . . . Loki would almost think it regret, if that made any sense.

But it does not. This is Thor. There is nothing his brother regrets, besides the Aesir lives he took before he gained sufficient control over his berserker rages.

Loki pours as much time as he can prise or finagle or lie to acquire into searching for new paths. When it looks like the four he has are all that's to be found, he tries to force more into existence, pouring spells and runes and raw will into the spots that were once openings but which have now sealed over, where the air is spongy and pliant and yet still, ultimately, unyielding. He does not sleep much.

Eventually he has to cease, because he's drained himself to the point of crippling headaches.

Loki refuses to visit the healers' quarters despite the near-constant pain. He argues with his mother over it with increasing vehemence and stubbornness until they are very nearly on the verge of shouting at each other and both recognize they must step down.

Frigga extends the first hand, because she knows his pride and knows that understanding what he must do does not mean he's capable of bringing himself to do it. She suggests he rest in his quarters for a day or so, and then see how he feels. They can discuss the matter again then.

Loki takes the offering with a mixture of gratitude and shame, and agrees. He throws all the servants out of his wing and undoes the minimal amount of armor necessary to fall unconscious on his bed.  
  
  
He wakes when someone opens his door. Loki drags his eyelids open, his head aching with interrupted sleep and weariness and the lingering pulse of drained magic. Outside his windows, it's night.

"Pack your belongings," he says, trying to force his voice to be less muzzy and more cold. "I want you gone before dawn."

There is silence behind him; but it isn't followed by the sound of a door closing after a sacked servant. Loki frowns and reaches for the belt tossed on the bed beside him, closing his fingers around the hilt of one of his throwing knives and wishing he felt steadier.

"You could at least look at me as you say that," Thor comments, an uncomfortable levity in his voice.

Loki glances over his shoulder to see his brother standing by the door, a strained half-smile on his face.

He releases the knife and sinks his head into the pillow, wincing as a fresh stab of pain pounds in his temple. "I thought you were a servant. I told them to leave me be."

Thor closes the door slowly. "Are you still unwell?"

Loki groans wearily and licks his dry lips. "If Mother sent you, tell her I am too tired to go to the healers' right now. Let me sleep."

"You've been asleep for over a day," Thor says quietly, coming nearer. "You slept through her visiting yesterday. Even when she tripped those spells of yours."

Loki frowns and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, trying futilely to will his headache away. "That's impossible." Isn't it?

Beneath the ache in his temple, he's becoming aware of other pains: in his bladder, his throat and his stomach. Someone has laid a heavy fur over him in lieu of the blankets he lays on. _Has_ he slept so long?

On the other side of the bed, he can hear Thor pouring water from the pitcher. "Do you normally sleep with a healing stone?"

Loki licks his still-dry lips again, and then breathes out and makes himself roll over. It transfers the ache in his head from one temple to the other, as he expected. There is a healing stone lying on the next pillow close by.

Loki wonders vaguely how much worse he would be feeling without it. "I slept through her arrival?"

"Yes," Thor says, holding out the cup of water. "Both of ours."

Loki's heart beats faster at the thought. The spells on his room are the only sure defense he has when asleep. If he was so drained that they were broken and he didn't notice, anyone could have--

"Here," Thor urges, sliding a hand under his arm. Loki jerks.

Thor pauses for a moment, but then resumes coaxing him to sit up.

Loki does so eventually, and drains the cup when Thor sets it in his hand. He drinks the next one Thor fills more slowly, feeling nausea rise while the water trickles down his throat even as his stomach continues to rumble.

"Is there anything I can bring you from the healers?" Thor asks, watching him with concern.

"No," Loki replies. He presses the cup to his mouth again, but can't force himself to take another drink yet. "I'll get some more sleep and then go there. You needn't worry. Tell her the same."

"You won't go."

If he wasn't sure it would make his head worse, Loki would roll his eyes. "Yes, I will, Thor. Let me sleep more first."

"You won't," Thor replies. "This is tied to how you keep slipping past Heimdall. You won't risk it being figured out."

Loki's heart starts pounding fiercer again. He reaches automatically for his knives, and then remembers sharply that he _can't_ , this is his _brother_.

He tightens his grip on the cup to make his hand stop shaking. "Interesting assumption. Why do you say that?"

"Because I know you," Thor says, and he sounds worn. "You've burned yourself out chasing something, and how you trick Heimdall is the one secret you won't share with anyone."

"It's not a _trick_ , I keep--"

Thor cuts the old deflection short. "Loki, your first instinct when I said it was to kill me."

Loki jolts and then tenses further. Thor is standing so close, his boots nearly touching Loki's feet, head and chest above him. Loki's armor is in piecemeal and he's too wretched to run or fight, this isn't--

Thor crouches to catch his gaze, no longer looming but still so close his arm brushes Loki's leg as Thor props it on his own knee. His expression doesn't look as though he intended it as a threat, but still. This is Thor.

"I wouldn't--" Loki starts, and Thor shakes his head.

"I know," he replies. "But if I were someone else, you would have."

He could try denying that too, but he recognizes this mood Thor is in now. His brother will reject any lie or twist that Loki attempts, dragging the truth out of him bit by excruciating bit until he has what he wants. And Loki is too exhausted and hurting to commit to that battle now. He always loses, anyway. "What do you want?"

Something flicks over Thor's face at that: an internal flinch, as the honesty he demanded cuts him too. Loki's eyes narrow.

"What I asked before," Thor says. "Is there anything I can sneak out of the healers' quarters that will help?"

"No," Loki repeats. He makes a vague gesture at the healing stone. "This is sufficient. I only need sleep."

Thor studies his face for a few more breaths, and finally nods. He rises to his feet. "I'll leave you to it, then."

"That isn't what I asked, Thor," Loki says neutrally. He rests the cup on his thigh, both hands around it to keep himself steady. This is nothing he hasn't navigated before; he can manage even with a headache. "What do you _want?_ "

Thor jerks at that.

Then his hands curl sharply into fists. Loki pulls back.

" **Don't** ," Thor says lowly, voice strained.

Loki curses to himself. There's no chance he can outrun Thor right now--can he scream loud enough for someone to hear before Thor's on him? Why did he send away all the servants.

"Don't speak to me like that," Thor bites out. "I am your _brother_ , not some stranger you must bribe for loyalty."

"A stranger wouldn't be standing in my bedroom threatening me," Loki replies as evenly as he can. The cup isn't as heavy as he'd like, but a blow to Thor's temple with it should buy him enough time to grab the knives.

Thor closes his eyes and steps backward. Loki watches him forcibly relax his hands, until they rest shaking at his sides. He keeps his grip on the cup as Thor looks at him again.

"Don't speak to me as if we aren't kin, Loki," Thor says, measured. "I don't expect gifts in exchange for protection."

"And yet you do want something," Loki replies coolly. He is not the only liar in the room right now.

The corner of Thor's mouth tugs back in a startling, uncontrolled bitter smile--but then he presses a hand to his face and squeezes the bridge of his nose, concealing his expression.

When he pulls it away several long breaths later, he only looks worn again. Loki has shifted further back on the bed, closer to his holster belt.

"Yes," Thor agrees, tired, as if having his hypocrisy exposed were physically draining. "I want to ask a favor of you, eventually. But not now. Not like this."

"Why not?" Loki replies with a brief lift of his shoulder. "You're already here."

" _Loki_."

"What do you expect of me, Thor?" he says harshly. "You are bad at this game. You have blackmail over me; you want something in exchange; you have played this clumsily from the start. Just state it already, I'm weary of this."

"What have I done that you think I would betray you like that?!" Thor demands hoarsely, and under the simmering anger there is a pain so deep Loki stills.

"Why do you trust me so little, Loki?" his brother pleads. "What have I done to make you hate me so? I--"

Thor cuts off, shaking worse, fists clenched again as he glares aside at the wall.

"--I don't," Loki says without thinking. He pushes the cup onto the chest but misgauges the distance; it tips off the rim to clang onto the stone floor. "I don't, Thor. I just--"

Loki rubs his face, wishing he didn't feel so horrid, angry that Thor has chosen such a poor moment to do this, catching him when he's weakened and can't get on his guard.

The silence stretches out between them; and eventually Thor forces a half-smile.

"You don't feel well," he says, still looking away. "I'll leave you to rest. Don't dismiss your servants if they come to check whether you want something to eat."

"Thor--"

"I know you are ill, Brother," Thor says shortly. "I am not taking advantage of it. When you've recovered, I have a favor to ask of you, and I will not stop being your brother if you decline."

He picks up the cup from where it's rolled along the floor. "Get your rest."

Loki feels scoured by the clear chastisement in his words, raw with the reminder that _of course_ Thor is the more decent of them: the better brother, the better god. The true Aesir. " **Leave**."

Thor goes without a farewell. Loki collapses to the bed and curls in on himself, stewing in his headache and nausea and panic and fury and hatred of himself and hatred of Thor for reminding him of what he'll never be no matter how he tries.

~

Loki recovers, eventually. But he and Thor continue to be distant, occupying the same rooms without sharing the same space, rarely conversing even when their mother and Fandral and Volstagg attempt to repair things between them.

But in the end Thor cedes, and comes to his brother. As always.

It's after long enough that the frustrated anger has faded on Thor's side. It always passes, with enough time. It erodes again and again under the knowledge that Loki's fears for his future and his ascension are the sundering force between them, a cold and empty chasm that gapes wider with each year, swallowing every effort to reach across that Thor makes.

The only reconciliation his brother can accept from him is submission. His fear cannot endure Thor being his equal.

So he prepares to seek Loki on neutral ground, planning to find him in the library once he eventually returns there. It will mean intruding on his brother's personal sphere, which will provoke him; but it will also be a place where Loki feels comfortable and more certain in his power, making him ultimately more amenable. His brother must be propitiated in very specific ways. Thor is long versed in the necessary tactics.

He intended to meet Loki on neutral or even the lower ground. But then his brother begins draining himself again.

He's barely recovered from the last time when he starts anew. Thor begins to worry that Loki will keep chasing this thing he seeks until he collapses entirely.

So he forces himself to visit Fandral. 

The other god is startled when Thor comes to his home without the company of Volstagg or Hogan, but he's hospitable regardless. In fairness, there's nothing Fandral has done personally to make Thor dislike him; Thor truly enjoys his company within that of the Warriors Three. He never fails to laugh at the god's wit, served as a foil to Loki and Volstagg's own and to Hogun's restraint. They are all good companions.

Yet for centuries now, even as his brother wraps his secrets tighter around himself, Fandral has remained the closest to a friend and confidant that Loki keeps. Thor cannot always tamp down his jealousy.

Fandral is clever and skilled at diplomacy, so Thor has no doubt the god is aware of his resentment. It makes matters strained between them without their mutual friends' company. Thor brought a bottle of Fandral's preferred wine to counter for it.

It can only balance so much. Fandral is careful with his words, even as they joke by the fire. The closest he comes to genuineness is expressing concern with the increasingly callous nature of Loki's pranks.

"Too many at a time, and it becomes harder to forget," Fandral shrugs lightly. "It might be better if he, ah, found another hobby than versifying for a time." He raises an eyebrow. "I don't suppose you know what type of woman he prefers? I've run out of suggestions, at least for goddesses who'd suit his temperament."

Thor wonders if Fandral truly doesn't know of his brother's preferences and is therefore still limited in how much of his confidence he holds, or if he _is_ aware and publicly includes Loki in his games of womanizing to reduce rumors. He shakes his head.

"He's...reticent," he replies.

"That he is," Fandral agrees, making a rueful face. "Ah well."

"It seems he's found another hobby recently, anyway," Thor continues.

Fandral's eyes flick to him for just a breath before he takes a drink of wine. When he pulls the cup away, his expression is schooled back to neutral pleasantness. He only nods in agreement.

Thor knows he's putting the god in an unpleasant and potentially hazardous situation, one that could harm not only Fandral but all the Warriors Three. Loki reacts excessively to betrayal, and Thor knows well that his brother interprets it where it is not. And it's been growing worse of late.

He sets his cup down on the table and spreads his palms on his knees.

"I'm worried for him," Thor says honestly. His dislike of Fandral is based on his own personal jealousy; the other god is neither cruel nor ambitious, and he will not use Thor's openness against him later. "Sometimes he shares more with you than I. Do you know anything of what he's doing to himself?"

Fandral relaxes, sinking back slightly into his chair and breathing out.

"I don't," he answers, with a concern in his voice that makes Thor marginally regret they aren't friendlier. Beyond the clear long-term value of his alliance and loyalty, Fandral also seems to genuinely like his brother. "I've barely seen him for decades. Those Midgard purges left us little time to talk about anything save court matters, and once those finally ended he only wanted his own company."

Thor exhales wearily, but nods. "I feared as much. But I still hoped."

"I wish I could help you, Thor," Fandral tells him. "I've only heard a few rumors since he stopped joining us at all. Has it become that bad?"

"I hope it will end soon," Thor replies.

Fandral nods in agreement and lets him leave the matter there.  
  
  
Soon afterward, their father tells him to take a healing stone to Loki's room.

Thor rejects the opportunity it presents. The terrain is too risky: everything would be reminiscent of the fight that began this recent gulf between them, and Loki would be guarded at the very best. He will wait, for however long he has to until this is over. His brother is clearly not going to cease harming himself until he has the result he wants.

Many times Thor has dreamed of just _hauling_ Loki to the healers' quarters and holding him down until they can finally help him. But that will not make things better between them.

And his brother's refusals of treatment are so intense, beyond any sense or reason. He must have a cause for it. Perhaps the healers **would** be able to ferret out the trick Loki uses to hide from Heimdall's sight if they're allowed to review the damage he's done to himself.

So Thor always discards the daydream after a few moments. He does still warn their mother whenever he sees Loki staggering openly as his brother makes his way to his quarters along one of his secret routes within the palace.

He's been doing that more and more over the past month. Even their father is growing concerned.

He and Loki are so similar in some ways that Odin has become deeply worried over how bad the injury must be that Loki can no longer hide it well. Quests for secret knowledge have caustic and permanent consequences; Odin's armor is designed to hide the abrasion on his neck from sacrificing himself to himself. It does not heal. It never will.

"If he's no better by tomorrow, tell him he is to go to the healers or they will come to him," Odin adds, handing over the stone. Thor nods.

"I've tried that already," Frigga replies from the seat where she's sharpening her sword. "He won't allow them in his quarters."

"He will no longer have a choice," Odin says flatly.

Frigga looks at him over the blade. "Yes, that will go well."

Thor leaves them to their argument. He already knows the refusal of aid has its own consequences: it is very, very faint so far, but Thor sometimes sees his father's hands tremble before Odin tightens his grip on Gungnir to conceal it. He carries the spear more often now.

He put off the Odinsleep too long last time.

He hasn't admitted it yet, but it's only a matter of time. Loki's coronation will occur within centuries.

It's a secret he could share with his brother. Long ago Thor would have, carelessly. But their father can summon depths of stubbornness when he feels he must, and there's a chance he'll drive himself onward until he collapses and Loki is crowned by default rather than design. He and Loki are so similar in some ways.

And if Thor tells his brother his suspicions and then they do not come to pass, Loki will think it deliberate on his part and trust him even less. Loki assumes bad faith from him more and more these days; he sees potential usurpation in everything Thor does.

As if their people would somehow trust him _more_ if Thor overthrew the crown prince chosen by the All-father. Some days Thor cannot fathom the logic his brother works from.

Multiple servants try to warn him off on the way to Loki's quarters: his brother has banned them again. Thor repeats each time that he is there by order of the king, and reassures Lofn that he will be fine when she bites her lip fretfully.

Thor doesn't announce himself as he enters his brother's rooms. At best, he'll be able to leave the stone without waking Loki, allowing his brother his restorative sleep.

Loki snarls when Thor is three steps into his bedroom--but he doesn't threaten banishment this time. That's an improvement.

"If you continue to terrorize the servants we'll have to pay them better," Thor says, continuing closer.

His brother glances at him over his shoulder, and Thor draws a breath at his pale, pained expression. It was not an improvement; Loki is worse this time.

If he tells his brother the healing stone is from their father Loki will reject it in suspicion. So Thor holds it up enough for him to see and says, "Mother asked me to bring this to you."

"Nng," Loki manages. ". . . My thanks. Give her them."

"I will." Thor comes around the bed and sets it close to his pillow.

Loki doesn't move or open his eyes again. One of his hands is fisted in his pillow and his fingers are curled like claws, rigid in the curvature of pain.

Thor hesitates, unable to leave him with no more comfort than this. "...Would you like water?"

Loki swallows involuntarily, an unnatural rasping sound, and licks his peeling lips. He makes a cursory agreeing noise.

Thor sends a servant to fetch colder water than what's available in the pitcher on Loki's chest. His brother falls asleep again in the interim, so Thor waits silently by the door and watches him.

It's been half a millennia since Loki has welcomed Thor's presence in his quarters, and far longer since he last trusted Thor enough to sleep so unguardedly in his presence. His brother lies curled in with the feverish chills that shiver through him occasionally, and it leaves him looking almost lost in the grand bed, a very small figure physically in comparison to his leviathan influence over Thor's life.

For once it feels like Loki is the vulnerable one, not Thor.

Thor turns away and looks to the door, and reminds himself that his brother's behavior is born of fear.

Thor knows that emotion intimately. He still relives the childhood intensity of it whenever their father is angry over something. He can forgive his brother for cruelties arising from it. They're always minor ones.

. . . They're usually minor ones.

Thor shifts on his feet and reaches for the door, but then stays in the room.

If nothing else, at least when Loki is cruel it offers Thor a glimpse of the god he should have been. When one of his brother's malicious little mischiefs falls into place or he's reciting an evisceratingly insulting verse before a group, Thor can see the unrestrained, razor-sharp god Loki was meant to be, the one hidden beneath the ill-fitting and dutiful shape his brother is still miserably trying to beat himself into.

Thor takes the pitcher of chilled water when Lofn brings it, and sends her to collect fresh linens. Loki has undoubtedly sweated through his current ones.

His brother stirs when Thor carries the pitcher over, so Thor pours him a cupful and helps him sit up to drink it. Loki obeys limply, without reserve; and Thor frowns deeper. This is wrong.

"I'm going to send for more stones," he says, as Loki drinks the water sluggishly. "Can you stand long enough for them to change the bed?"

"No," Loki mutters. "I'm fine. Let me sleep."

"In your armor?" Thor replies. "Is that an unknown spell to heal quicker? We should alert the Einherjar."

Loki glowers unfocusedly over the rim of the cup. Thor shakes his head.

"You have a fever, Brother," he placates. "Remove the rest of your armor, let them replace your bedclothes. You'll sleep better then."

Loki continues to argue from stubbornness for a brief while longer, but Thor wins. He sets the servants to fetching more water along with hot broth and weak ale, to changing the bed and filling a tub, and to requesting three more healing stones from Eir.

"I said no," Loki scowls as he slumps in a chair while the servants strip and replace the bedclothes. Thor stands in front of him, blocking most of his brother from view. This minor exertion has left him paler, with deep circles under his eyes and a sheen of sweat along his brow. Thor doesn't want others to see him like this. "Stop them."

"I thought you meant you couldn't stand," Thor lies apologetically. "They're already on their way. And you'll heal faster."

"Eir will be suspicious," Loki insists. "She'll talk. Stop them now, Thor."

Thor exhales. "Father said if you weren't better the healers were going to see to you regardless of your wishes," he finally admits. "It's well known you aren't feeling well. The rest of us went through the same when we lost our worshipers. Take the stones and let them help."

Loki gives him a baffled look.

And then his gaze narrows and shifts to the servants in hearing behind them.

"Mm," he says at last, taking another sip of water.

When the bed is changed, the tub filled and the meal set on the table, the room empties until only the two of them are left. Loki remains in his chair and watches warily as Thor tests the temperature of the bath.

"'Father said,'" he repeats once Thor turns to him. Apparently he's not so ill that he didn't catch the incongruity, which is inconvenient but heartening.

"He and Mother were together," Thor replies. "They're worried about you."

Loki grunts.

"That lie won't work," he mutters. "No one's going to believe I've been abandoned so long after everyone else was."

"They already do," Thor replies, because it's one of the rumors. "Frey retained followers nearly a century after the rest of us. It's no surprise devotees of the cunning, shape-shifting god managed to hide even longer."

Loki snerks into his cup reflexively, then gives him a searching look.

"It's a rumor going around," Thor answers, before crouching in front of him. "Mother and Father are having their servants encourage it. Lift your arms, Brother; I should be able to remove most of this without you having to stand."

Loki jolts when Thor begins to undo the first of his belts. His brother starts to push his hand away, then stops short of touching him. His grip has tightened around the cup.

"--That isn't necessary," Loki says. "I can do it. You've seen to enough."

"You look as though you'll land flat on your face if you push yourself much further," Thor replies. "If you feel better, you should eat something while I work. Then you can return to sleep sooner."

Loki hisses his breath out through his teeth, and stays tense as Thor continues to undo the belt.

It's not long before his brother turns argumentative and slips loose, moving to the table and standing to eat. Thor cedes and follows, banking on the exertion of the win to make Loki less inclined to fight when Thor resumes undressing him. Sometimes a victory must look like a loss.

It was easy to plan. Loki never would have stayed in the chair for long once they were alone; that was predictable. Seated, Loki was cornered and pinned. But standing at the table, his brother has the sensation of more power. He may have a hand braced heavily on it to steady himself, but he is on his feet and not hemmed in by Thor. It's a small defeat for Thor that will feel like a sufficient win for Loki, distracting him enough that he won't see the flanking maneuver.

Once, Thor did not have to think of every interaction with his brother as a battle staged within a protracted war.

But that was very, very long ago. The memories are hazy now: vague recollections of a boy who smiled back at him, who placed himself between Thor and their father, whose eyes sometimes bore the same fear as all the other Aesir but who stood next to him regardless.

Loki still stands beside him in battles on the field and in the palace, and Thor thinks he might still come as a defense between himself and Odin if Thor truly needed it of him. But those open smiles have been lost. The closest Thor can coax from Loki anymore are quick grins and laughs at good jokes, a flash of genuine mirth across his brother's face before Loki begins to drown under his fear again.

Thor loosens his brother's remaining armor as Loki sips gingerly at the broth. He moves slowly as he lifts the metal and leather away, partly to give Loki time to eat, partly to keep from jostling him too much. His brother is braced so hard against the table that his arm trembles with the strain.

Mostly Thor takes his time to enjoy the permission to touch his brother this intimately. Loki begins shivering harder once air hits his sweat-soaked underclothes, so after Thor's set his armor on the stand he tosses two more logs into the fire before returning. When he takes Loki's tunic in hand, his brother lets out a slow breath before setting his bowl on the table and shifting his arms to aid him.

Thor smiles and indulges himself more, sliding his palms along Loki's sides as he peels the damp fabric away from his skin. A stronger tremor than the fever chills runs through his brother.

When the tunic is over his head, Loki tilts away and fumbles for the first thing in reach on the table, picking up his goblet. Thor tosses the tunic at the door for the servants to retrieve, and kneels to undo his boots.

The cup slips in Loki's hand. Thor wipes away the drops of ale that spilled on his shoulder and begins to unfasten the gaiter, one hand curled around Loki's calf to hold the leather in place as he loosens the cords.

After several shallow breaths, Loki sets his goblet shakily on the table. Thor hears more ale splatter along the wood, but Loki pays it no attention and Thor is far more interested in this.

His brother's hand falls to his side, twitching as Thor discards one gaiter. He shifts his hold to Loki's other calf and starts on the second.

Loki almost reaches out when Thor tightens his grip to hold it in place. But then his brother clenches his fist and presses it hard to his thigh, as if he cannot decide what he wishes to do. Or cannot bring himself to commit to it.

That is also predictable, though Thor wishes it wasn't.

He finishes with the gaiter and lets it fall to the stones as well. Thor cups the back of his brother's knee and urges him gently to lift it so he can work off the boot. Loki shivers once more but obeys, shifting his grip on the table as Thor supports him, his leg a heavy, warm weight in Thor's palm.

Thor wishes yet again that he could make the first offer.

It would be so much easier for them both if he could finally end this long and unspoken tension between them. It's been the source of equally as many conflicts as their supposed competition for the throne. It's become exhausting to bear.

But he cannot.

Loki shifts once both boots are off, twisting in his grip. When Thor releases his leg he moves out of reach, so Thor pushes to his feet and returns to the tub.

His brother toys with the goblet for a few heartbeats but drops his hand when Thor begins to lather the cloth. "That's enough. You can leave."

"There's no point in changing your sheets if you crawl back into them still sweaty," Thor remarks.

Loki presses his palm harder to the table. The muscles in his back shift with the movement, and Thor forces away the desire to lay his hands against them, to soothe and stroke and push and hold. "I'll wash before I return to sleep. You've spent enough of your time here, Thor."

 _Where else do you think I have to go?_ he's tempted to ask; but it will gain nothing. And it isn't as true as it once was. He's carved out a life for himself now. In most ways save his relationship with his brother, things are better.

"Are you certain?" he asks instead. "You still seem unsteady."

"I am better," Loki replies, and Thor can hear the edge of panic creeping into his voice. "I'll be fine. Cease treating me as an invalid."

Insulted orders. It will only devolve from here. Loki's extended as much intimacy as he can bear.

Thor lays the cloth and soapcake beside the tub and nods. "As you wish," he replies. "Mother will likely be by tomorrow. I hope you're well soon."

Loki grimaces at the table, not meeting his eyes. "I'll be fine with more rest. I was before."

Reference to the last time they spoke when Loki was ill like this. Thor needs to leave before everything is soured again.

He bids his brother farewell and departs. Loki still refuses to look at him as he goes.

It would all be so much easier if Thor could make the first offer. But he cannot. If he did, sooner or later Loki would denounce him for it.

It wouldn't matter that Loki feels the same way. It wouldn't matter how much happiness and pleasure and contentment they might build; it wouldn't matter how strongly they loved each other, now that they could acknowledge all its facets. In time Loki's fear would make him condemn Thor as a pervert and a shame to the royal line, in hopes that **that** would finally give him certainty that the throne will go to him, a surety he craves but which forever eludes him. Loki views his position as so precarious that there is no betrayal he couldn't justify to himself eventually, save perhaps outright killing Thor.

After all, if the Aesir are forced to choose between an adopted jotun and an illegitimate, incestuous berserker, well, at least the child of enemies has been raised as their kind and didn't initiate the breaking of kin-ties.

At least the jotun properly hates himself for his blood, while the berserker fails to.

Some days Thor understands the logic Loki is working from so well that he doesn't know how his brother bears up under it.

So he makes his feelings as obvious as he safely can, and he waits. He waits for Loki to overcome his self-loathing for his desires, and his disbelief that Thor shares them, and whatever else it is that keeps him from seeing what Thor cannot make any plainer without speaking it aloud. 

He will wait, for however long he has to. It is the only option he has.

When he retires that night, Thor lays in bed and remembers the hot feel of his brother's skin against his palms. He imagines what could have been, if Loki had moved to touch him as Thor knelt before him.

He pictures his brother--not so ill, not so exhausted, he might as well fully exploit the fantasy--laid out on the swept-clean table, twisting and arching under Thor's hands and mouth, finally speaking his name with desire and need and love instead of distrust and guarded affection.

Eventually he puts the dreams aside and falls asleep.

~

In time his brother recovers again, and thankfully does not begin the cycle a third time. He must have found what he was seeking.

Not long after, Mjölnir hums to him that Loki is playing with chaos.

Thor makes his farewells to Heimdall and Volstagg and tracks him down. He finds Loki in the blacksmiths' quarter in one of his lesser-used glamours, speaking far too earnestly and abashedly with a smith. The other god is growing increasingly red in the face.

Thor watches with a grin as the god finally rounds on him and Loki flees at his threats, his brother sniggering aloud after he turns the corner and his expression is no longer visible to the smith.

Thor watches him for as long as he has sight of Loki's pleasure. But once his brother is gone, he exhales and makes himself go down and attempt to mitigate the mischief he's put in play.

Long ago, he wouldn't have. But Fandral was correct: more and more often these days Loki allows his pranks to escalate from humiliation to injury. Nothing less gives him relief anymore.

Thor is pleased that his brother is slowly ceasing to sabotage himself, but cannot condone his choice of targets. They are of Asgard; they should not harm the Aesir.

It takes time and cajoling and the ever-constant subtle threat of his presence, but eventually Thor believes no worse will come of the insulting verse Loki claimed to be quoting than a brawl or two in an ale hall.

Thor leaves with that, and hopes his brother won't be disappointed enough to attempt something worse next time.  
  
  
They have still not spoken much since the last time Loki was ill, so he's surprised when his brother visits him in his quarters. Loki never treads into Thor's territory anymore. His discomfort within it is palpable. Thor has used that fact to shield his bedpartners from discovery by making sure their assignations take place in his wing.

He rises from his chair with a smile, setting aside the new leather strap he was winding around Mjölnir's handle. "Brother. What brings you here?"

Loki gives Mjölnir the darting, suspicious look he always makes at first sight of her, but then turns his attention to Thor. "You," he says dryly. "Have you taken to imitating my pranks?"

Thor takes a moment to determine what Loki means. Then he shakes his head and drops back into his chair, kicking the one across out from beneath the table in invitation. "We both know that was you," he replies indulgently. "I just made sure they'd leave aside the weapons when they fought."

"Why?" Loki asks, and the concealed sharpness in his drawl gives Thor a further estimate what kind of battle this is to be. "Last I heard from you, you felt no need to be responsible."

"That isn't responsibility," Thor answers. "It's obligation. We are princes of Asgard. What you do in other realms is different, but our people should be exempt from pranks that go beyond fistfights."

Loki gives him a long, silent, unreadable look.

Soon Thor begins to regret having re-taken his seat at the table. Loki still distrusts Mjölnir, and Thor's careless sprawl has placed her back within his reach. His brother will never believe it wasn't intentional.

But when Loki finally speaks, he surprises him.

"'Other realms,'" he says at last, before reaching for the chair Thor extended. "Yes. About that."

Ah.

Thor straightens as Loki takes the seat across from him. His brother is still eying him cautiously; but he doesn't have that blank, remote expression of last time.

"You had a favor to ask?" Loki says. There isn't trust in his voice, but at least he's behaving like this is a request from Thor and not some minor councilor or guard of purchasable loyalty. An improvement.

"Yes," Thor nods.

Loki raises an eyebrow. "Well?"

"Do you feel more yourself again?" Thor asks. "I believe it will take a lot of magic. I don't want to ask it of you when you're still recovering."

Loki makes a dismissive gesture. "I'm fine. If it's so terribly complex, I can ask Mother's aid."

"No!" Thor says too abruptly. He drops his hands to his lap, clenching them tightly. "No, no one else. It must be you, or no one."

Loki blinks in surprise for a moment. And then his brother gives him another silent, considering look.

"...So you want to know my 'trick,'" he says at last, voice neutral.

"No," Thor replies, more steady now. "I am not asking for your secrets, Loki. But it's something similar."

Loki makes a noncommittal noise. He gestures for him to continue.

"Is there a way to conceal someone from being searched for by magic, while still letting them walk around visible to others?" Thor asks.

Loki stifles a quiet, disbelieving sound and quirks his mouth slightly. "Of course. A shielding charm? That's all you wanted?"

"Yes," Thor agrees. "If there's one strong enough to block sight from Hildskialf or the Bifrost."

His brother stills in his chair, one hand curling tighter around the armrest. Thor watches his face and waits.

"...What do you need something like that for?" Loki asks at last. The unspoken accusation is mostly obscured from his voice.

"Privacy," Thor answers.

When Loki's expression doesn't change, he explains further. "You know that any time I leave Asgard I'm chaperoned. If I don't choose one for myself, one finds me before I walk too far from the walls. I want move about like a god, not a dog kept leashed lest it flee."

His brother draws back slightly at that, and Thor belatedly curses to himself for speaking too openly. That will be turned on him at some point in their future.

"Who can say?" he continues, softening his tone again in the face of Loki's silence. Thor half-smiles. "Perhaps after two days' solitude I'll learn I prefer company, and put it aside to never be used again. But I want to at least _choose_ that."

He holds his brother's gaze. "Can it be done?"

Loki does not answer at first. He looks away instead, gaze darting over the rest of the room as he factors this request of Thor's into all his other calculations.

When the silence stretches out thinly between them, Thor grips his hands tighter. "I'm not asking for your secrets, Brother," he repeats. "But give me one of my own."

"I'll have to work on it," Loki says.

Thor blinks and sits straighter.

His brother shakes his head. "Even _I_ don't know a way to hide from Hildskialf, other than invisibility spells or camping in the right corner."

Thor wonders if that last part is metaphorical or literal.

"It may not be possible," Loki continues, still hedging. Still not looking him in the eyes.

"If that's the case, so be it," Thor agrees. "But thank you for trying."

". . . Yes," Loki says, at last. He shifts in his chair, then pushes to his feet. "Was there anything else you wished?"

"That was all," Thor replies. "Thank you."

"Thank me if I succeed," Loki replies, but it isn't cruel.

"Thank you for trying," Thor repeats. His brother must be propitiated in very specific ways. If Thor appears to grovel, Loki will usually do as he wishes.

His brother nods once and takes his leave.

~

Weeks later, Lofn finds a night for him. Thor spends the majority of it in bed with no thought other than to quench his ever-gnawing hunger: he's recently lost two lovers to marriages and a third to a more fulfilling partner than he can troth to be, and the fourth hasn't been able to find more than a scant few hours at a time for him in nearly two months.

Thor manages to restrain himself only by the knowledge that Lofn favors him for his smiles and geniality and not his raw appetite. If he tried to truly slake his hunger with her, she'd become unwilling when he was barely sated and flee his room for ever after. She's still asleep with exhaustion for hours afterward.

Thor paces as she recovers, restless even with the storm raging outside to siphon his energy. There are still so few Aesir willing to brave his bed that Thor will submit to nearly anything they demand of him; he's been famished, he's been _starving_ , for so long that he's ceased to feel shame begging for scraps.

If he ever hears which Norn decreed he would be both a fertility god and a berserker, he will strike her down regardless of the consequences.

When Lofn stirs in the bed at last, Thor forces back the ravenousness that courses through him at the sight of her stretching languidly. He brings her wine and tidbits and nudges her toward gossip.

Most of it is small things, sleepy complaints and amusing moments spoken as she lies with her head on his shoulder. But as she grows more drowsy and content and unguarded, she begins to speak of his brother.

Loki's servants fear him like fire. They keep themselves the most invisible in their duties of all the palace staff. They choose to abandon Asgard for other places before they risk speaking ill of him among any but themselves. Two that had previously spent time in Thor's bed were coldly dismissed by his brother for what Thor considers minor infractions. The one that was more willing to gossip was so brutally humiliated by Loki's insulting verses about him that he now lives by the farthest border of Asheim. Thor gave him a parting gift of enough silver and supplies to see him through the building of his hall and the first winter there.

Lofn tells him that his brother is still showing no sign of recklessly exhausting himself again, which is a relief. She tells him that Loki has been scowling at scrolls and writing more notes than usual and cutting up fabric and then throwing whole sheets of vellum and bolts of cloth into the braziers, driving the servant who must polish them mad because they stain the copper with eerie colors and leave her hands numb. Thor hopes that means his brother is fulfilling his promise.

He doesn't doubt Loki will delay granting it and dangle the memory before him just to hear Thor beg a few more times. But he is doing it, at least.

There was never a guarantee Loki would. Thor has little other recourse when his brother chooses not to champion him, and Loki likes it that way.

He pushes that thought aside as well. Thor teases Lofn until she agrees to one more roll in the sheets before she has to be about her daily chores, and still holds himself back during it.  
  
  
It takes roughly a year and another deferential petition from Thor, but finally his brother gives him a cloak that Loki promises will shield him from the Bifrost and seidr, if not quite from view of Hildskialf itself.

Thor thanks him and doesn't comment on how Loki knows other kinds of magic besides seidr.

That, too, was predictable.

~

At first Thor uses his gift rarely. The small spell alerting Loki he's wearing it does not activate often, and never for longer than a day. When Loki scrys his brother's actions in the palm-sized disc he's tied to the cloak, Thor is mainly using his solitude to hunt. Most of the time he still chooses company when he travels.

Part of Loki is annoyed at the waste of his work, a frankly dazzling complicated mesh of spells that shield Thor from others' sorcery while also ensuring that the chink in them cannot be exploited by anyone but Loki.

But most of him is glad to learn that Thor is not using it for any larger subterfuge than hunting tactics.

A small piece of Loki knows he wrongs his brother with his distrust. Thor has never been anything but honest with him--sometimes even to his detriment, when _dis_ honesty would serve him better. As they grew older and became more and more embroiled in the vast, interwoven webs of the court, for a time Thor became ever more honest with him, as if sick of the veneers of civil politicking the rest of their lives demanded. Thor was right: his brother has done nothing to give Loki cause to believe that he will betray him.

Nothing, save existing. Save being the first-born, and having a true claim on the throne. Save being more capable at winning allies and respect than Loki is.

A piece of Loki knows he wrongs his brother; but the rest of him knows that were their roles reversed he would never allow the hundred myriad opportunities within Thor's reach to pass him by without grasping at least a _few_ , and that logic is often louder than any sentiment.

Thor never uses his solitude for anything besides hunting or riding in peace for brief whiles; and eventually Loki barely glances at the scrying disc when the alerting spell activates.

And then Thor keeps the cloak on for three days straight.

When Loki finally breaks free for a few breaths from the aggressive and infuriating statecraft with the Nidavellir 'diplomats' that he and Odin have been at, the scrying disc is blank. It shows nothing beyond his reflection no matter what Loki does to try and repair the broken spell.

Loki leaves Asgard with no announcement and hunts down his brother's trail.

His heart pounds harder as it leads him toward the border with Jotunheim and then across it and into the realm. Loki wraps his cape tighter around himself and stays in his Aesir skin, and wonders if this is a trap. Even with the adrenaline coursing through him, he's shaking as much from weariness as cold while his most recent stolen horse picks its way carefully down the icy mountain; but he refuses to sleep in this hateful place. Is it a trap? Why has Thor come to Jotunheim?

It turns out because Jotunheim has sorceresses outside of Asgard's control.

Loki forces the information about the new spells laid on his cloak from the jotun, and destroys what he doesn't want of her supplies out of spite. He makes himself eat some of the salted meat in the stores to be able to keep moving until he's back across the border, and then he burns the hall down with the corpse inside and starts riding hard back toward Asheim, exhausted and enraged.

He has to halt at last when the horse he's riding wears out and there's no homestead within range to take another from. He's over the border again, at least. Loki ties the horse beside a brook with vicious curses and then collapses in a divot, more hidden by spells than the surrounding undergrowth.

His weariness makes them weak. Loki wakes later while it's still daylight and finds his mother's projection pacing the area.

He straightens his armor and drags his hair into some semblance of decent, and then forces himself to stand. "I'm here."

"Loki!" She turns sharply, eyes going from wide with panicked worry to narrowed in relieved anger. Loki finds himself abruptly feeling like a scolded child. "What are you _doing?!_ "

Loki realizes, again abruptly, that fleeing the palace and riding for Jotunheim probably looked ill.

He swallows hard to drive the thought away. "Thor disappeared," he explains, and then has to swallow several more times when his throat cracks. He didn't want to stop long enough to quench his thirst until he was safer within Asheim again. "I went looking for him."

"'Disappeared?'" Frigga repeats, confusion starting to mingle with the disapproval. "He went to Midgard two days ago."

Loki frowns. "No," he explains. "I followed his trail. He went into Jotunheim, but I lost it at--"

His mother interrupts with a shake of her head. "Yes, I know. He came back and said he changed his mind about taking the long route, and asked Heimdall to send him there directly. But **you** need to return home."

Loki stares at her.

The realization settles coldly in his guts that this **was** a trap. He underestimated Thor.

Those hunting trips Thor had been going on--he'd been gathering supplies, the dragon scales and everything else the sorceress used. Thor had planned this, from ever before he asked Loki for his ' _favor_.'

He'd collected all he needed and waited until Loki was lulled into believing Thor was using the cloak for nothing of import, waited until Loki was too distracted with the court to pay him any attention. Thor didn't want to be free of Heimdall and their parents' oversight.

Thor wanted to be free of him.

"Loki," his mother repeats more cautiously, dragging at his attention. He focuses back on her and then wonders what the expression on his face must be, to cause such nervous unease on hers. He presses a hand over it.

". . . You need to return," Frigga says at last, still speaking carefully. "The dwarves are becoming more unruly at dinner without their favorite storyteller present. Your father's begun to sound serious about having the Einherjar use them for battle targets, war be damned."

He's being flattered into compliance. Usually she's not so bald about it. He must truly have frightened her.

He's teetering on the edge of losing everything here.

"Yes," Loki says. He pinches the bridge of his nose hard until he can force his face into the appearance he needs, and then he looks up and rubs a hand wearily at his eyes. "Yes. My apologies. I'll return as soon as I'm able. The horse should be rested enough by now. If not, I'll trade it."

"Don't push yourself beyond bearing," she cautions. "But thank you. We'll see you when you arrive."

"Yes," Loki agrees again, and gives her a small bow.

She continues to study him with concern for a few breaths in silence, and finally reaches out to touch his cheek. Loki makes himself hold still beneath the faint, tingling pressure the projection generates; he cannot afford to drive away the only remaining ally he has in this family.

"Don't push yourself beyond bearing," Frigga repeats. "Whatever happened, we can settle it."

Loki nods in agreement because he has no words that aren't invective.

Frigga draws back a heartbeat later and bids him a safe journey. Loki gives her his farewells and waits until her projection fades away before clenching his hands into fists.

He rides back to Asgard at a gallop, jaw grit tight to hold in his desire to scream until his throat is raw. He thought himself wrathful before; it was a pale shadow of the rage electrifying him now.

Yet under it seethes the sharp, terrifying knowledge that had Thor done this not to escape him but to usurp him, he would have fallen. He wouldn't even have seen it coming until he'd already lost. He underestimated Thor.

His brother's charity is the only reason the consequences aren't worse.

Loki wrenches his cape around him once more, fighting down a chill that has nothing to do with the wind, and spurs the horse on to the palace.  
  
  
He pours his immediate fury into the negotiations with the dwarves, into taunts and bets and barely-veiled threats, ignoring his parents' efforts to rein him in. By the end the dwarves have lost their wagers and the treaties have been redrawn even more in Asgard's favor, and his father is beyond exasperated.

"You **cannot** do that again, Loki," he orders as they empty a cask of mead in Odin's hall, slumped on benches across from each other at the center fire; his father's rooms are archaic in design, unlike the rest of the family's. Frigga is overseeing the cleaning of the guest rooms, a task that involves a startling amount of cursing on her behalf and some truly delightful insults by the servants.

"It succeeded, did it not?" he retorts, still too restless, too unrelieved, to care of consequences.

Odin's gaze narrows over the horn. "And if it hadn't?" he replies tartly. "Don't be so reckless again."

"You worry too much." Loki grins wide. "I knew not to bet my head, after all."

Odin, drinking horn pressed to his lips, makes a smothered noise. A breath later, Loki realizes he's stifling a laugh.

A warm flush deepens in his chest, and Loki begins chuckling himself. His father shakes his head.

When he speaks again, though, his tone is sober. "You cannot be so reckless, Loki," he repeats. "The dwarves will remember this humiliation. And we have no control over the version of the story **they'll** tell."

Loki huffs and shrugs a shoulder. "They'll die out before us."

"But their records are long," his father points out. "Have more caution."

Loki drains his mead, and then makes himself close his eyes and nod. He can see Odin's point; he simply doesn't _care_. But that will hardly go over well.

"Yes, yes," he agrees. "I will."

"Good," Odin answers, still serious. "Negotiations are not the place to vent frustration."

Loki stiffens on the bench.

He regrets emptying the horn; he has no prop now to work with. He shouldn't have let his guard down.

"Did Thor not bid you farewell before he left?" Odin asks.

"No," Loki says at last, shortly.

Odin nods and unplugs the cask, refilling his horn. "You two frequently argue," he says. "It has consequences." He holds out a hand for Loki's own horn.

Loki passes it over reticently. "...Was it wise to let him go on his own?"

Odin gives him a long, deliberate look from the corner of his eye. Loki shifts on the bench as he realizes his cloak must have been noticed; he couldn't determine how to shield from Hildskialf, after all.

...Or Thor told their father about it, to bargain his way to freedom.

He wouldn't do that. It would injure him as surely as it would Loki--the cloak would be useless once their father had hold of it long enough to work out its spells.

Then again, if Thor only wanted to escape _him_ , he hardly had need of the damned thing afterward now did he?

"He's grown able to control his rages," Odin says, jolting Loki from his thoughts. He takes the refilled horn.

"And they're beginning to recover our stories more and more on Midgard," Odin continues, settling back in the high seat. He rubs a thumb along his horn. "Most still refuse to acknowledge our divinity, but it remains a start. Thor was always one of the most popular there; his presence may nudge matters back as they should be."

Loki frowns and rests his arms on his knees, leaning in closer to the fire unconsciously before he realizes it. The affinity has been growing in him for the last few centuries; perturbing--he loathes the idea of being shaped by human misinterpretations--but useful, sometimes. "You sent him on a pilgrimage?"

Odin shakes his head. "He wished to go for his own reasons. This was my request, since he'd be present at the right time."

"Ah." Loki straightens and brings the horn back to his mouth, sipping slowly as he stares at the fire.

Odin gives him another long look.

"You are my crown heir, Loki," his father says, making him startle. When Loki meets his gaze, Odin continues: "Thor is not. That grants him more freedom to be away from Asgard. His presence here is not necessary when we aren't at war; yours will always be."

 _A cage_ , Loki thinks before he can help it.

He recalls once more of the feel of Mjölnir's power coursing through his veins, that one solitary taste of pure freedom that's tortured him ever since, and he has to curl his hands tightly around the horn to keep the ale from spilling.

If it's to be a cage, at least it comes with a kingship. It's still better than the life of an outcast, a creature with no homeland and two skins, neither the right one. At least a cage still means a place.

He has to stop before the lies grow any more ashen on his tongue.

"I understand, Father," Loki promises, before taking another drink of the mead.  
  
  
After the dwarves' departure, he begins quietly and ruthlessly interrogating the servants for an explanation of how Thor predicted his actions so well.

~

At first Thor's departure has little impact on his daily life, and Loki begins to realize just how deeply the separation between them has grown. Had he not been so viscerally aware of his brother's absence, Loki might have gone days or even weeks before realizing he'd yet to see Thor anywhere in the palace, not even in the training grounds or the great hall.

He begins to lose sparring partners as more gods realize he's increasingly unlikely to acknowledge admissions of yielding or surrender. Soon Loki finds himself only able to consistently rely on Fandral, who's agile enough to keep dodging until Loki can remind himself to practice restraint; on Volstagg, who _still_ has no qualms about simply throwing him into a wall if it comes to that; and on Sif, who seems to relish the excuse to keep fighting. Loki finally makes himself drop her as a sparring partner after their last duel grew so vicious the Warriors Three and Heimdall interceded.

Fandral doesn't even try to excuse her afterward as he helps Loki to the healers' quarters. He only tries to mitigate the bad blood between them before it grows more rancid.

"She misses Thor, the same as you," Fandral explains, as he holds out another damp cloth. The healers have bound up Loki's wounds, but there's still more blood to clean off. "It makes you unfortunate targets for each other."

"Does she think I had a part to play in my brother's absence?" Loki retorts sharply, scrubbing away the dried blood on his forearm. "Or are you telling me that _she_ was involved in it?"

"Neither," Fandral says with a shake of his head. "You're both fond of him. And Sif always relishes an opportunity to fight. This just grew out of hand."

"'Fond' how?" Loki says sharper, staring at him. He's never had much success uncovering his brother's lovers, even before he began forcing himself not to try. Was Sif--

\--Fandral has always had a skill for reading others. Has Loki's perversity been uncovered?

He's too exposed, his armor and tunic removed, but his belt of knives is still in reach behind him. Has the god told any others yet?

A life in a cage is better than a life as an outcast.

"Fond as we all are," Fandral shrugs. "He's a good friend."

...Of course. He's always been careful to conceal his desires; he needs to cease being so on edge, or he'll give himself away.

"Of course," Loki mutters. He goes back to cleaning away the blood, glaring at the cloth in his hand.

"And you certainly gave as well as you received," Fandral continues, reaching for another cloth as the one in Loki's grip grows increasingly dried out and stained.

"You needn't keep this up," Loki says flatly. "You are embarrassingly transparent."

Fandral pauses, and then looks over.

"You are both my friends, Prince," he says carefully. "It was worrying to see you two seem ready to kill each other.

"Fights can escalate unintentionally, I know," Fandral goes on quickly, before Loki can seize on that bit of potential treason to ruin Sif. "But that kind of battlelust in a spar . . . there are other ways to cope with his absence."

Loki straightens before he can reflect on what a poor idea that is and glares at him.

Fandral gazes back, expression steady if not entirely calm. "He's missed, Prince. But he'll return."

Before Loki can retaliate, another says behind them: "It's the Midgard influence."

Loki turns to glower at Balder, standing in the doorway with a bandaged arm.

"It is, isn't it?" the other god continues.

"Do you make a habit of eavesdropping on private conversations?" Loki says harshly. "Leave. This is no business of yours."

"Hadn't you heard?" Balder says with a half-grin. "It's a characteristic of mine that once I've pronounced a judgment it can never be altered."

Loki and Fandral stare at him.

A breath later, Loki recalls why the words sound so familiar. It's from that edda he was working on, back when he cared. He never got around to burning either copy. They're still in the library somewhere, assuming the Midgard version hasn't crumbled.

He snorts before he can help it.

"What a convenient accretion," he ripostes.

"I don't know that it makes up for precipitating Ragnarök," Balder demurs, and Loki laughs outright before hissing at the pain to his ribs. Fandral shakes his head, chuckling more carefully.

"But in truth," Balder adds after a moment. "Isn't one of the stories about you and Sif having an argument?"

"Ah," Loki agrees after a breath of consideration. "Yes. I cut off her hair."

Balder nods. "If it's been told there more often lately, it's probably affecting you both," he says reasonably.

Loki gives him a considering look.

It's a skilled defusing. Both he and Sif are exonerated for their actions, and the blame laid on too vast and ultimately unwitting a third party to require either of them to seek retribution.

It's a level of cleverness he wouldn't have expected of Balder the Brave, more warrior than statesman. But then, Loki rarely paid him attention outside of battlefields; his personality was more the type of company Thor preferred.

And they have all been changing steadily of late.

. . . Once he allowed an insignificant god to live despite the potentially grievous consequences if his glamour was seen through, and now he's ready to kill Fandral despite centuries of friendship and loyalty when all the god has done is misspoke? Has he altered that much without realizing or caring?

Is he truly such a monster at the core, so utterly incapable of the Aesir way, that some pissant short-lived humans can drive him from its path after a millennia of adherence?

Loki pinches the bridge of his nose hard, then hisses again as the gesture pulls at his still-knitting flesh.

"--Yes," he says abruptly. "Perhaps you're right."

"I hadn't though of that," Fandral agrees, folding his arms as he mulls over the matter.

"You're one of the fortunate ones," Balder tells him without cruelty. "And it can be hard to notice even when you know to be wary of it."

Loki nods and throws the bloodstained cloth into a nearby bowl before taking the fresh one from Fandral. "I'm sure you're worried for Lady Sif too," he says. "Go see how she fares."

Fandral nods. "Aye, my prince."

Loki curves the corner of his mouth. "I'd say send her my regrets that things went so far, but I'm sure that will only offend her more," he adds. "Send her my commendation of her fighting skills."

Fandral half-grins briefly and sketches a bow before departing.

"Well played," Loki says quieter, since Balder is lingering in the doorway.

The other god lifts a shoulder. "It's likely true," he replies. "It's difficult to be certain these days."

Loki makes a noncommittal noise and nods at his arm. "I didn't hear you were injured in training."

"It's barely a scratch," Balder dismisses; and Loki pauses at the sudden, increased weariness in his voice. "But no one cares to take the risk that it may grow worse."

"You can't blame them," Loki replies at last, remembering all he learned of Balder's parents decades ago. He dabs at more dried blood. "It _is_ Ragnarök."

"True," Balder replies with the placid neutrality of one who's heard the same thing from scores of others already. Loki recalls again his father's hand in the death of Balder's foster-brother.

"Has it been difficult for you?" Loki asks, even as he thinks he'd be better off ending this conversation. His ribs ache.

And yet, all Balder's stories are either about his goodness or his death, which makes for boring tales. The humans may have marked Loki out as Jotnar, but at least his stories are entertaining. Right up to the imprisonment.

"At the moment I'm apparently being used as a metaphor in some feud between countries," Balder replies, leaning against the jamb. "They staged a play. My lover is torn between myself and a human king, who accidentally kills me after I spare his life, and then Thor insults my corpse while eulogizing it. 'Gods of battle stern and gory, weep ye over the hero slain! Balder, thou the Aser's glory! Love, base love, has proved thy bane.'"

" _Stop_ ," Loki says dryly. "My ears are bleeding."

Balder chuckles. "It's the same all the way through."

"Who disliked you enough to pass that drivel on?" he asks, retrieving another damp cloth.

"Your brother," Balder replies, and Loki pauses again. "I didn't think to ask if it was a challenge to combat. Should I have?"

"Probably not," Loki answers after a moment. "He would have said so to your face if it were a true challenge."

"That seemed more likely," Balder agrees, which--perhaps--means that Thor is only sending missives into Asgard and not that he returned at some point but didn't come see Loki.

"He never was much for poetry," he replies, wiping away the last of the blood. "And he's been on Midgard long enough now his tastes may have devolved further."

Balder only smiles flitting and insincerely this time, which isn't unusual. Most know not to join in insulting Thor in Loki's presence, even if he's doing it himself.

. . . That, at least, has not changed in him over the centuries.

Balder bows. "Would you like me to call anyone to you?"

Loki shakes his head once. "No. I'll be well enough once these heal more. You may go."

Balder gives his farewells and leaves. Loki stays in the empty room even after he finishes gingerly drying off, and thinks of his brother.  
  
  
This formerly unknown facet of Balder is an intriguing one. It makes Loki want to seek his company more, to fully determine this new aspect of his godhood and fit it into his plans, to see what use it might have for him in the future.

But then he thinks of Midgard's retellings, and that human poet's prophecies, and his father's efforts to kill the guise he was using to look into Balder's heritage; and he forces himself to put the urge aside.

Instead he ignores Balder almost as much as he now does Sif, for all their sakes, and turns to reviewing Midgard's recent events.

~

When he finds the package waiting for him at the current house he's living at, Thor's chest tightens.

The majority of its delivery instructions are in German. But his brother's greeting and both their names are written in runes spelling Asgard's language.

Thor takes it and barely converses with his companions in the sitting room as he passes before striding up the staircase. The package is tight in his grip as he shuts himself in his room, the paper beginning to grow damp and the ink smudging as Thor runs a thumb repeatedly over the runes.

It's been decades since he's seen his brother's writing. Loki has yet to deign to include a letter of his own with the ones their parents send Thor along with Idunn's apples.

He expected Loki to come after him immediately.

When he didn't, Thor assumed their parents were somehow able restrain him until his brother's fury simmered to a controllable level. But he hadn't expected that to last for long. The first few years he spent on Midgard, Thor kept waiting to see Loki each time he woke or broke through an overgrown path or entered a road house.

But in time a decade passed, and then more; and slowly Thor began to wonder if his brother had rejected him altogether.

Loki has what he craves most now after all: an Asgard without Thor's presence in it to threaten his place. Perhaps that finally gave him enough peace that it made up for any emptiness he felt in Thor's absence.

Perhaps he hardly felt it at all. They were so rarely on good terms before Thor left. Perhaps Loki barely even noticed the loss.

If there was a loss. If it wasn't that Thor had loved him more than Loki ever felt in return.

That would explain why it's always so easy for Loki to cast him aside whenever he grows weary of him.

Thor puts his thoughts away carefully and opens the package.

The clothing inside is very fine: expensive wool in the waistcoat and trousers and a well-stitched great coat, the gloves bleached impeccably and the leather as soft as Midgard can make. It's all cut in the most current fashion, the one that's only just found popularity among the elites and which Thor's adopted mainly to be able to wear proper pants once more. A card is tucked in the waistcoat pocket, containing the address of København's finest hotel and one of Loki's alternate names.

Thor shakes his head and smiles. Some things about his brother have clearly not changed.

The clothes fit him almost perfectly, a fact that sends a small shiver of pleasure up Thor's spine as he dresses. Loki remembers him this well.

The only faults lie in factors his brother couldn't account for: the way Midgard's meals are always insufficiently filling, the changes due to perpetually restraining his strength among humans. Thor takes journeys to hunt out trolls' and ogres' nests, revenants, giant-wolves and straying Jotnar whenever he feels himself growing soft, but none of those creatures are a comparison for Aesir sparring partners. Not since Hrungnir died.

Thor shrugs on the coat and heads out into the winter rain with brief farewells, leaving the canal street to make his way toward the hotel.  
  
  
When he gives Loki's pseudonym to one of the staff, they immediately bow and dart off for the back passages. Thor moves deeper into the entrance hall and watches the central staircase, and wonders how long his brother's been here to develop such a reputation.

More things that haven't changed.

His chest constricts as he sees Loki shift out from behind two men to round the post and start down the stairwell. His brother's eyes dart over the people in the vestibule for only a breath before they light on Thor, and Loki gives him that sly half-smirk he always makes when he feels he's getting away with something.

It used to be a look that was a shared act between them. But for so long now it has been something Thor is forever shut out of, a gesture he's only on the receiving end of.

As he traveled on Earth, he often thought to himself what might happen when he finally saw Loki again. He pictured so many possibilities, most carnal and highly unlikely. Some were deeply unpleasant; others were happy and equally unlikely.

None were enough to prepare Thor for the mix of emotions that roil in him now. There's pleasure at the sight of a familiar face amid a world he will only ever be an expatriate in; worry at what Loki has designed all this for. The small flinch of apprehension that always accompanies his brother's presence before Thor has determined Loki's mood. Mingled good spirits and ire as fragments of past memories flicker through his mind. He strides across the room and meets his brother at the foot of the stairs.

"Hm," is the first thing Loki says, eyeing his suit with speculative distaste. "I paid him too well."

Asgard's language is a vivid and distinct sound among the murmuring almost-right polyglot that surrounds them in the hall. Thor breathes out a grin.

"Vain," he replies. "It's good work." He pulls the bit of paper he sliced from the package out of the greatcoat's pocket. "If the measurements you gave him were in this, he probably had to have someone translate it. Only the elite bother with German."

"Tch," Loki waves dismissively.

Thor has to fight down a quick jolt of aggravation. This is hardly unusual for his brother. And Loki couldn't know how deeply frustrated Thor has become at seeing his name used to advocate feuds between nations by nobles that claim to admire their farmers' ways while still looking down on them.

There is no possible way Loki could know. Thor always composes his letters to their father carefully, making sure his words are measured and calm and have no reflection of his real feelings. Even if he must rewrite them a dozen times before he manages it.

"So you like it, then?" Loki asks, a bit more carefully.

Thor pushes away his thoughts and smiles. They've only been apart for half a century or so; it's so brief a time compared to all they've had before. "I do. It's an excellent suit, Brother. My regards."

Loki makes a faint shrug yet smiles a little more genuinely. "'Excellent' for Midgard. ...It looks well on you."

Thor smiles wider. "As does yours."

"Tch," Loki says again, now with more genuineness. He gives his own clothes an aggravated look. "I'd prefer my armor. When did that fall out of fashion?"

Thor shakes his head. "A couple centuries past."

"Pity," Loki mutters, and Thor chuckles.  
  
  
Loki halts a passing member of the hotel's staff and sends him out to buy wine, and gives him a piece of hack gold carelessly to do so. Thor restrains a smile as the boy darts out the door, beginning to suspect that much of the tolerance of his brother's superciliousness is based on Loki not bothering with modern currency.

Loki has not only managed to acquire a private room and bed, he's also extravagantly had a chair and table installed in it. Thor shakes his head briefly and reminds himself that he's grown used to Midgard's ideas of wealth in the past decades. Several replicas of Draupnir and Loki could afford all this with more to spare.

They falter with each other at first. Loki is careful, reticent with his words and news, and Thor has spent too much of his life having to read his brother's moods not to react accordingly.

But soon the boy returns with four bottles of wine--and a pocket undoubtedly still full of coins given the current exchange rates, though Thor keeps that to himself--and Midgard's brewing methods have strengthened enough over the years that it has a bit of an impact. Loki throws his head back laughing as Thor grumbles about the humans conflating him with Zeus just because they both command lightning.

"Hercules must _love_ that," his brother grins. "Have you told him? I will."

Thor growls low in the back of his throat, and Loki laughs again. Thor shakes his head and grabs the last bottle of wine, gesturing for Loki to hand him his golden drinking horn.

They're Midgard creations, not Asgardian. When he asked, Loki mentioned taking them from a royal's cabinet before settling here. Thor pours another serving and gives the horn back to his brother, still snickering in his chair. "Are you finished yet?"

"You can't blame me laughing," Loki retorts. "It's hilarious."

Thor grunts. "It's typical. They mix us all up," he explains. "They think I'm Donar and Perun, too."

Loki raises an eyebrow over the lip of his horn. "Even for mortals, that's surprisingly foolish."

Thor refills his own. "It's typical. They don't truly believe in us anymore," he says. "Just steal our names. So they don't make distinctions."

Loki shifts in his chair. "Why are you still here, then?"

Thor blinks and looks over.

"You've done what you could under Father's orders," his brother continues, staring at him. "If they still don't believe by now, you might as well come back."

Thor sets the wine on the table and reflexively wipes the stream that spilled onto his hand on the cloth. "I'm not here on Father's orders."

"So he says as well," Loki replies.

"You know why I came here," Thor says shortly. "It wasn't for him."

His brother frowns at that. Thor draws a breath and hisses it out through his teeth.

"We haven't seen each other in years," he says strongly. "Must we argue already?"

It is the wrong thing. His brother's eyes narrow before his expression grows blank. Thor curses to himself.

It's been over half a century. Why must they still do this every damned time?

"No," Loki replies. He leans over the arm of his chair and snags a small package sitting on the floor, tossing it at Thor.

Thor catches it and drains his wine before setting the horn on the table. His brother says, voice still neutral, "I mainly came to give that back to you."

Thor frowns briefly--he hasn't sent anything to Loki from Midgard, sure that his brother would be unimpressed at best or would destroy the presents at worst--and opens the package. Inside lies a thick, heavy silver necklace and two finely-wrought brooches.

They're the parting gifts he gave Lofn.

Loki is silent across the table as Thor stares at the jewelry in his palm and wraps his control tightly around himself. At last he makes himself ask, "Does she live?"

Loki jolts very faintly at that, a brief look flashing over his face, the one he makes when he understands the impact of his reputation on what he's being accused of.

"Yes," Loki says, tightening his fingers on his horn. "I only sent her away. Your spy is alive yet."

At least the weight he holds doesn't include the blood of yet another Aesir because of his carelessness. "She was not a spy," Thor replies. "We had some pleasant times. This was a gift for her since I was leaving. You shouldn't have done this."

"She was my servant, and speaking insubordinately about me," Loki retorts.

"She is my friend," Thor answers. "You don't have the right to take away gifts I gave," and finally his brother seems to notice his anger.

Loki shifts his chair back slightly, putting more space between them, his face that apprehensive calculating mask he always resorts to when he realizes he's pushed Thor farther than he intended. The humans they're surrounded by in this building will be no aid to him; they wouldn't even make an obstacle to Thor.

Thor makes himself stay in his seat at the foot of the bed, and begins folding the package closed again. He'll send them back with his next letter and ask someone to deliver them to her. Balder is usually agreeable. And he doesn't count favors.

"If it bothers you so much, I'll return them," Loki says at last. He shifts the horn and holds out a hand.

"No," Thor answers. "I'll see to it myself."

Loki frowns again at that, but Thor cuts short whatever retort he's preparing. "You do not get to feel offended at not being trusted, Brother, after something like this." He tucks the package in the pocket of his greatcoat. "Did you have another reason you wished to see me, or was this all?"

"If she wasn't a spy, why one of _my_ servants?" Loki says sharply. "You have enough of your own. She confessed to talking to you about me. Don't pretend you're the noble one here."

"My servants do not wish to be in my bed," Thor replies, still holding tight to his anger, his frustration and humiliation at being forced to speak this aloud as though Loki doesn't already know. "Few are so bold. She was. I am not planning to use idle pillow chatter against you, or whatever threat you perceived in this. It was only a few pleasant evenings."

"Liar," Loki answers, his expression inhospitable. "You used it to time when to flee."

"I left with our parents' leave," Thor says, choosing his words and tone carefully; this is rockier terrain. Loki is right about his actions and motivations, wrong only about his intention--but Thor will not convince him of that now if he hasn't managed it before. "You know that. They both mentioned telling you as much."

"But not--" and then Loki cuts short and looks away, tightening his grip on the armrest.

_Mine._

Thor watches Loki seated tensely in the sole chair in the room, back straight and expression betrayed, and feels a heavy realization settle over him: this is a portent of the future.

His brother has ever made himself the mediator of all Thor has. Thor never fought it when they were children, since Loki rarely wielded his power cruelly then. The change was so gradual that by the time Thor understood it would never be as it once was between them, this was the only escape he could see. And even it is only temporary.

Loki's coronation will occur within a century or so.

"Is all this because I did not bid you farewell before departing?" Thor asks evenly. "Or was I to seek your permission as well as Father and Mother's? You never needed mine for your own journeys."

"You **lied** to me," Loki spits, which is not an answer to either question but a clarification all the same. "Give me my cloak back."

"I don't have it with me," Thor answers.

"Then go retrieve it."

"It's been half a century," Thor says. "I've travelled a great deal. You did not make it that sturdy, Loki. You know that. It's more rags than anything now."

His brother scowls. "So you cast it aside? You should have returned it sooner. I don't want my spells picked apart by others."

"I didn't discard it," Thor answers. "But I can no longer wear it."

His brother falls silent for a time after that, draining his horn and twisting it in his hand. Thor waits.

"If you had their leave," Loki finally asks, voice controlled again, "why all that pretense?"

"It was no pretense," Thor answers. "I didn't know if Odin would grant me permission. If not, I still had your cloak."

Loki makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. "That is not what I asked, Thor."

"Hasn't that question been answered?" he replies.

Loki's eyes flick to his face for the barest moment before he glares back at the drinking horn.

"Mother wrote of what happened when you learned I'd gone," Thor continues. It was their father; but Loki will forgive things of Frigga that he'd never endure from Odin. "Why are you asking, if you already know the answer?"

" _Why?_ " Loki demands, voice cracking. The gold is bending in his grip; he throws the horn to the table a breath later. "Why did you leave?!"

Thor stares at him, and wonders if they have both misunderstood each other this badly.

"You have what you wished for now, don't you?" he asks--but carefully, without his former certainty. "I am not in Asgard to be a potential threat. You are the only one present in line to the throne. ...Is that not what you wanted?"

Loki jerks much harder in the chair and stares at him. "I--"

But he cuts himself off once more and says nothing further. He looks away again instead.

The heaviness bears down on Thor's shoulders more, compressing his ribs and forcing him to close his eyes for a long moment until he can endure it. His brother's moments of sincerity are less a matter of telling truths than they are simply not telling a lie.

"There's no logic in that," Loki mutters. He's still looking away when Thor glances at him again, playing distractedly with the horn on the tablecloth. "You cannot stay in exile forever."

"It won't be forever," Thor replies. "I'll return for your coronation, of course."

Loki flinches and tightens his grip on the horn. Thor grits his jaw and wonders if his brother is _still_ taking all his words as a potential threat. But when Loki speaks it is not what he expected.

"Who knows when that will be?" His brother smiles tensely at the window. "You cannot stay away for centuries, no god has ever done that. Not even one on a quest for Odin. There will be gossip. It will look poorly on the whole family."

\--Has their father still not spoken to Loki about this?

How could Loki not notice the way the consequences of delaying the Odinsleep are afflicting him? It was growing incrementally by the time Thor departed. He made his request to leave when he was sure their father was feeling ill enough that he would be glad to be spared the possibility of having to defend against Thor's rages. How could Loki not have seen the signs by now?

But then, his brother and Odin do not spend much time in each other's company anymore.

They've done so less and less since their father last woke from the Odinsleep. Especially as that Islander's edda takes a deeper hold in Midgard. Odin was setting Loki to tasks in his stead, or dividing duties between them, always stopping shy of avoiding him outright. It would've been clearer were their mother not so skilled at mediating between them.

Should he have told Loki his suspicions sooner, regardless of the potential consequences? What does it mean that Odin is still clinging to the throne instead relinquishing it to Loki as he ought? Have the Midgard revisions had more impact than he'd believed?

"Well?" his brother demands shortly.

\--And yet. Loki overrode his gifts, as if it were his right to dictate even those small matters of Thor's life.

"I write to various Aesir, when I hear their names being used," he answers. "Most should have some knowledge of why I'm away by now. More and more people are remembering us these days. My absence to encourage that will not shame the family."

Loki blows his breath out through his teeth. "You are being _stubborn_."

"I don't wish to hear that from someone who wears ram's horns on his helm," Thor says dryly. Levity will serve him better than continuing their argument when he's still this frustrated. His brother gives him a sour look.

"Fine," Loki says at last, shaking his head. "See what you can coax from this realm. But they're only using our names for land feuds. That sort of thing will never become true devotion."

"Yes," Thor agrees, tired with the reminder of where Midgard's fate is winding toward despite all he does. "But Father's a war god. Perhaps even that will grant him some power."

Loki gives him a sharp look. Then he glances away and considers his words.

Thor fills their horns with the last of the wine. His brother takes his when its offered and sips it slowly, still thinking.

". . . He said you would be here 'at the right time,'" Loki muses. There's still an edge of wariness in his tone.

"But the right time for who?" Thor says aloud for him. Loki arches a brow and nods, and gazes out the window as he drinks, eyes distant.  
  
  
They cannot recover those earlier moments. But they part on better terms than Thor expected.

The jewelry is a small weight pulling at his greatcoat as he shrugs it on. Thor does not let himself think about it as he gives Loki his goodbyes.

He'll need to write to Balder immediately when he returns home, to ensure she's still whole and hale. It wouldn't hurt to check on his other former lovers as well, though Loki didn't throw any of their parting gifts before him. Better to assume the worst and be proven wrong when it comes to his brother's jealousy.

As Thor fastens his gloves, Loki shifts in his chair and says lowly, "You should come home."

Thor glances over, but Loki turns his face away. He stares out the window again instead, hands tight around the armrests of his chair. His lips are pressed together as if he's already ashamed of saying something so open.

It makes Thor's heart give a heavy thump, too full of what once was and now isn't and might someday be. He fastens the stud and shakes his head. "Not yet."

Loki's mouth twists in a grimace just as Thor expected. His brother bares his true feelings so rarely that any rejection of them is a hundred times rawer than it should be.

Before Loki can snap out an insult or disparagement to recover himself, Thor pushes aside the table and cups his neck, kneeling before him. Loki jerks back into the chair.

Thor doesn't let go. "One day you will be king, and then you will order and I will have to obey," he says quietly. "But not yet, Loki."

His brother's eyes widen as he stares at him. His breath has grown shorter.

Thor studies his face, taking in the flush of hunger and want that Loki surely doesn't realize is so blatant, and hopes that the portent was wrong.

When Loki is king, when he no longer fears a challenge to his legitimate ascension, when any attempt to oust him would clearly be bald usurpation, perhaps _then_ his brother will finally feel secure enough to speak what they both feel but Loki refuses to see and Thor cannot risk saying aloud. Perhaps then he will not be so afraid of the consequences, or hate himself for his desires.

Perhaps the future will not be as tight a cage as Thor fears.

He rests his forehead against Loki's own. "I'll not return just yet, Brother." Thor swallows, and admits, "I miss Asgard. I miss you. But I do not want to leave Midgard like this."

"Why does it matter?" Loki asks shakily after several heartbeats. His breath ghosts over Thor's mouth as he speaks. Thor cannot and does not want to restrain the tremor that runs through him at that. "You've done enough."

Thor huffs. "You know why," he replies. "I'll return for your coronation for certain, Loki. I may come back sooner. But I wish to stay here a while yet."

At long last, Loki makes a low noise and rests his hand on his upper arm. Thor shivers again, and for a heartbeat his brother's grip tightens to pull him in.

But then he stops, and sabotages himself once more, and pushes Thor away.

It's a faint and insignificant gesture. Not even a fraction of his brother's strength. He could ignore it.

He could ignore it, and bring Loki forward for a kiss, and finally taste the lips and breath and skin he's wanted for so long. Thor feels more keenly the presence of the bed behind him. He could pull Loki out of his chair, undo these excessive layers of dress from them both, take Loki to it, _finally_ end this farce at last.

He's heard more than enough rumors to know his brother is a selfish lover. He knows Loki can only willingly give away so much power before he panics. Thor has no doubt he'll have to be the one who submits as always, to lay on his back and let himself be taken, keeping hold of his brother to guide Loki into the rhythms necessary to satisfy them both, to make them equals in pleasure even if they never are in life. So be it. He's dreamed of this for so long that he's not particular about the details anymore. Not if he finally gets to **feel**.

It's an insignificant gesture and he could easily ignore it. But that would not erase the fact that it's been made.

So Thor draws a deep breath, and finally makes himself let go and pat his brother's shoulder and lean back. Loki's hand is shaking as he pulls it away.

". . . Very well," his brother manages at last. "Stay here, if it pleases you."

"That is not what I said either," Thor replies. His brother shakes his head hard.

"I'm leaving tonight," he says abruptly. "Is there anything you wish me to take back?"

"No," Thor answers. "I've no other word."

"Very well," his brother says shortly, still gripping the armrest too tight.

They make their farewells with strain, and Thor departs. He's in a poor mood when he returns to the house. He avoids his current companions to keep from inflicting it on them.

As he undresses and sets the suit aside, Thor recalls the feel of Loki's own clothing beneath his hand as his brother sat in the only chair in the room and made Thor take the lesser seat. The wool was finer still than Thor's own; a very small thing, but predictable. Loki can never give Thor any gift without taking something better for himself.

His fear cannot endure Thor being his equal.

But at least it's almost always small things. So far.

Thor folds the suit away. He sends a letter and the jewelry to Balder, and eats a tasteless meal in near-silence with his companions, and goes to bed soon after and tortures himself with fantasies of what could have been.

~

Her son is sullen on his return from Midgard, distant and uncommunicative and responding viciously to the slightest provocation. When Fulla comes to her with a petition for her cousin to be removed from working in Loki's quarters and transferred to somewhere--anywhere--else in the palace, Frigga sends a request for Loki to visit her.

He makes an effort at pleasantry when he arrives. Frigga has him sit with her and hold her yarn as she works on her spinning, and asks about his trip and how Midgard has changed in the last several centuries, teasing out bits and pieces of information until she has the conclusion she already expected: he and his brother have fought yet again.

A tiny portion of Frigga thinks that at least they're still speaking to each other. The rest wonders how it always seems to come to this between them.

"I'm sure he'll return soon enough," she replies, when Loki grumbles under his breath. "He likely hasn't had enough there time for himself yet, with this task your father's given him. He'll come home once he's content."

"What does he need time for?" Loki replies. "What's so compelling on Midgard? All these centuries and they still barely understand crude machines."

"You know why," she answers. "If this is what he wants, we must let him be. I wish he would come home too," Frigga adds. "But demanding it will not make him more willing."

Her son is studying her with a frown. Frigga shakes her head.

"You can both be quite stubborn," she says, lifting the corner of her mouth. "Have patience. He'll return soon enough."

"Thor said I knew why as well," Loki replies, still frowning. "What does that _mean?_ "

Frigga gives him a long look.

But as her son continues to stare back at her in frustrated puzzlement, she slowly realizes where she has erred.

"Ah," Frigga says quietly. "I see. We thought...."

She lets the spinning wheel fall still. "I thought you knew already."

Odin was certain he hadn't, and forbade Thor to say anything to Loki after he himself was told. She and Thor both doubted him; Loki hoards secrets like they're dearer than gold, keeping them close until the moment their reveal will be most useful to him or hurtful to another. It seemed impossible he wouldn't know already.

And yet. Apparently her husband was right, and he did not.

"What do you mean?" Loki demands again, shifting in his place and ruining the yarn he's holding. A shadow is starting to cross his expression: not a look of betrayal, not yet, but a slow-growing fear of it.

Odin didn't want him to be told because he felt it would be one more ill thing to sit between their sons when they're already so argumentative.

And yet. Loki is already pulling further away as she fails to answer.

Frigga knows she's the one closest to her son at current. She does not want to imagine what recklessness he'll drive himself to if he believes he's lost even her faith.

"Thor requested to go to Midgard because he wished to meet Jord," she answers. "Your father and I discussed it and decided we could not rightly bar him."

Loki frowns again. "Jord? Why not just summon her here? Midgard could survive her absence a few days."

"I did not wish to do that," Frigga answers neutrally. "And it would force Thor to be rushed in his acquaintance. He requested specifically to visit her, and we had no valid reason to refuse him."

Her son is twisting the yarn agitatedly now. "What does it matter if it's rushed? Why is he meeting her anyway? A marriage could never work, he'd have to leave Asgard permanently for her. This is pointless."

Frigga blinks and then studies him for a breath.

"It isn't that," she answers a few moments later. "She birthed him. He asked to meet her, and Odin and I couldn't see cause to forbid him."

Loki is silent for so long that Frigga feels her blood chill.

After a time he looks away, his gaze darting across the room before settling on the yarn crumpled in his hands. He begins picking apart the tangles, smoothing it back out to as it was, still not speaking.

"We thought you knew," Frigga says again at last. "You always know so many things you don't mention."

"I did not," Loki replies. His voice is blank, his gaze still on the yarn and hidden from her.

She cannot say they would have told him otherwise, because of Odin's order. So instead she says the closest to the truth as possible. "He did not seek for it to be a secret."

Loki's flinch at that is almost imperceptible. Frigga pauses again.

Thor has made it clear he knows of Loki's birth parents; but as Frigga sifts through her memories, she realizes he's never explicitly said that Loki told him of it. She and Odin just assumed he'd finally done so--they were on such good terms for a brief while, so inseparable, and a portion of it was clearly driven by desperate relief. It had made sense.

And yet.

Thor is far more perceptive than he is often given credit for. He had to be, growing up navigating between his father and brother and even her. She knows he hides it.

In some ways, Thor is even more distrustful than Loki. Too many close to him harmed him too much when he was young; now he guards himself despite all her and Odin's efforts at reconciliation. Only his brother is still allowed through all his defenses, and Loki does himself no favors with his abuse of that privilege.

"I see," is all Loki says.

He tries to excuse himself soon after, but Frigga refuses to allow him to leave like this. Their argument escalates as she subtly plucks at his weaknesses, nipping away at the lies he's trying to shore up around himself, until finally his pretenses snap to let his anger spill out, raw and genuine. She feels a twinge of guilt as she does it; but there is no other way to make her son hear sincerity.

"No **wonder** you would claim there were no favorites between us when we were children," Loki spits, stalking along the floor. "Hardly either was a better option, were we? You had no real sons to look to."

Frigga's hands clench at her sides.

Loki doesn't see it. He's scraping his hair back from his face as he paces, trying desperately to laugh but unable to force away the tears rising. "But then that's not true, is it? Thor at least is _half_ legitimate."

"I am Thor's mother the same as I am yours," Frigga says lowly.

Loki jolts and turns to her.

"Am I not?" she asks.

A different pain washes over her son's face. And then he's moving toward her.

"--Yes," Loki answers, catching one of her hands. "Yes, I--I'm sorry. I didn't--"

"You did," Frigga replies, voice still shaking. "You always have, ever since that day. No matter what I say, Loki, you will not believe me."

He looks down. "No, I--it isn't--"

When he tries to pull back Frigga drags him into a hug, holding as tightly as she can to keep him from slipping away. She has already lost two children, and she **will not** lose any more.

"You and Thor are my sons!" Frigga tells him forcefully. "I'll not have that taken away by something as insignificant as _blood_."

Loki flinches again with that; but after a breath he finally raises an arm and half-embraces her back.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, hoarsely. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

He bites his lip before adding, "I know I-- I know you feel that way. You've never given me reason to doubt. I don't...."

He exhales shakily. "I don't know why I can't believe it," he mumbles, and Frigga would clench her hands again in aching frustration if the misery under his words weren't so clear. "--I'll try harder. I promise. I didn't mean to hurt you."

Frigga tightens her hold until he at last returns it.

When she eventually draws back, Loki is still tilting his face away. Frigga waits until he's finished wiping it dry before cupping his cheek, urging him to meet her gaze again.

"We should have stopped all those insults about the Jotnar sooner," she says, and this time her son almost manages to hide his flinch. "But the war was still so fresh in mind.

"But things are changing, Loki," she promises. "A few gods have already married giantesses and raised perfectly hardy children. More will do so as memories fade. You are Loki of Asgard, an Aesir as much of the rest of us," Frigga tells him. "Anyone who wishes to claim otherwise will answer to your father and your brother and myself."

She can feel him clench his jaw. But then he closes his eyes and draws a long breath, and makes himself nod.

"I cannot make you believe me," Frigga says gently, brushing his hair back from his face. "I can only promise you it's the truth."

"I know," Loki tells her with a nod. He swallows. "I'll try harder."

"Thank you," Frigga murmurs, and draws him into another hug.

~

He leaves his mother not long after, because for all that she's kept herself steady her eyes are wet and Loki knows she'll want solitude to recover in before she faces anyone else. He feels half sick with the knowledge that he is the cause of that pain.

...Not the sole cause. The main, yes; but the ferocity with which she insisted he is her son....

Because if Loki can be her son, then of course, so can Thor. Anyone who could declare a Jotnar runt to be kin easily has the heart to accept her husband's illegitimate child as the same.

\--Thinking like that is not keeping the promise he just made.

But it is still the truth. Loki clenches his jaw and his fists as he strides back to his quarters, taking a long and winding route through the palace's many little-used, narrow and forgotten paths. He does not believe she's lying--she says that he and Thor are both her sons, and there is no evidence he's seen in his entire life to the contrary. So he must believe her.

And yet, he is a jotun. That is irreversible truth. He can never be an Aesir; his blood is Jotnar through and through.

Thor may be an illegitimate son, but he was still born of gods. Loki is a giant and nothing more.

...If Thor is his brother regardless of blood because they were raised as brothers, then his parents must be so as well. It's the raising that matters. He may never be an Aesir, but he is still of Asgard. That cannot be taken away from him.

So why can't he accept it?

Loki stops sharply and slumps against a wall, pressing a hand to his face.

He thinks again of the desperation in his mother's voice. If she feels this so strongly, why can't he just believe it? Why can't he be the son she deserves? What is so broken in him that this is impossible?

... _Why_ did she insist on this so fiercely?

The worry of Thor leaving them couldn't be enough. Thor would always return to Asgard in the end--this is where he belongs, and no fragile claim on him by Midgard could overpower that. There must be something else driving it.

Loki stays in the passageway for a very long time, thinking. And then at last he reverses his steps, and makes his way to his father's quarters.  
  
  
His father is leery for a moment at his unannounced and unexpected arrival. Loki feels the sting of the distrust, even though he knows Odin is sure of no one save Frigga and has been that way for as far back as Loki has memories. If his father was ever different, he can no longer recall it.

He sets it aside.

"Balder," Loki says as he lets the door shut behind him; and in the hall his father goes very still.

". . . I didn't recognize you in that guise at first," Odin says, at long last. "It was well done."

Loki feels the knot of distrustful fear he's carried for so long he ceased to notice it loosen at last within him.

He steps into the hall. "When _did_ you see through it?"

"When there was no body after I dug the grave up," his father answers. He gestures for Loki to join him in the hall.

Odin opens a new skin of wine and fills horns for them both. Loki's is ancient, the hollowed bone of Audumla's forgotten mate, and even after millennia the power in it hums faintly against his palm. He's never seen Odin offer it to anyone.

The one his father fills for himself is one of the golden horns Loki brought back from Midgard. He wanted nothing to do with the memories they evoked, and so gave them to his parents.

Loki notes the silent message in both acts, and takes his place across from the high seat. He nearly spills the wine before he can force himself to hold the horn still in his hands and stop trying to tease out the power dormant within it.

"So he _is_ your son," he says instead.

"Ours, yes," Odin agrees, settling in the high seat and holding Loki's gaze. "I don't know how Midgard discovered it, or if it was an unfortunately accurate guess. But it is true." He takes a brief sip of wine. "I will never acknowledge this again. Who led you to be certain?"

". . . Mother," Loki replies. "It was an accident. She didn't speak of it; we were discussing something else. It left me thinking about the prophecies."

"Mm," Odin replies, still gazing at him. "So she told you of Thor's birth mother?"

He is losing this game already. They're barely a few moves in and already his father is flanking him and taking his pieces, forcing him to defend rather than attack.

"It wasn't intentional on her part," Loki exonerates, before parrying. " **Why** was it a secret?"

"Because the matter of succession is already a strain between you two," Odin says bluntly. "But no matter what claim Thor holds on the throne, he is a berserker. I will never pass it to him. I did not build this realm to have it destroyed wantonly."

Loki is silent for a long while in the face of that.

"...He's grown better at controlling his rages," he says at last, even though it's damaging his position. "You said so yourself."

"I won't risk Asgard on 'better,'" Odin answers. "The throne will be yours in time or else I will hold it myself until I die there. I will consider no other options."

Loki lifts the drinking horn and takes the barest sip necessary to conceal his face. "Not even the possibility of another legitimate child?"

His father's snort is weary and without mirth.

"One a berserker, one a trickster, and one the catalyst of Ragnarök," he replies. "We chose not to see what another attempt would become."

Odin's words are insulting on the face of it; but their unvarnished honesty is so unlike his father that the undercurrent is a clear extension of truce. Loki holds tight to his recognition of that but locks the words away in his memory despite himself, and thinks of the barren goddesses who touched Balder's life as mothers.

Eir is Frigga's friend and has been for as far back as he remembers.

"I see," he says.

Eir is one of the Aesir Loki is certain knows the truth of his heritage. She must; Frigga and Odin would have needed her for a pretense of pregnancy and birthing.

Loki adjusts his expression and takes a deeper draught of the mead. "No illegitimate, existing options?"

Odin gives him another considering look. Loki lifts an eyebrow slightly. "The Midgard tales have not painted you as the most faithful husband."

"You are not too old to confine to your quarters for a fortnight," his father says dryly, and Loki snickers into his wine before he can stop himself.

Odin tips his drinking horn, staring at the wine within as it sloshes along the sides. Loki frowns briefly as he notices a tremor in his hand, and wonders if his father is scrying. He can't feel the spell.

"None worthy," Odin says, and Loki stills again. "Nor acknowledged as mine. It would take too many years of training, too many chances."

His father catches his gaze again and holds it steadily. "I know you fear a challenge to your place. But there is no one else. I left papers in the event of my death that make it clear no usurpers will be tolerated. If it cannot go to you, if you were beside me in battle, it will be your mother's." Odin takes another drink of wine. "If all three of us are lost, then I assume there is no 'Asgard' as I made it left to be ruled."

Loki shifts again on the bench, unable to quash the sickly feeling twisting in his gut. He rests his arms on his knees, the horn gripped tight in one hand.

"Thor should be fourth in line, at least," he says, gripping the drinking horn tighter when his father flashes him a look. "He would not be a bad king. If the realm is so damaged that we three are lost, he would inspire others to rebuild."

"Thor would be a wretched king," Odin replies flatly. "He is incapable of cold ruthlessness and sacrificing others for a greater cause." His father looks away again, gazing out the window. A breath later, Loki hears the sound of ravens.

He twists the horn in his palms until wine drips over the side and stains his gloves, aware that he is walking a very fine line and unsure what side he wants to choose.

He never intended Thor to be completely disregarded for the throne. But what if he argues too persuasively, and his brother begins to look like the better choice?

Odin studies him appraisingly, and at last holds out a hand for his horn. Loki drains and returns it.

"If you feel Thor a viable option, when you hold the throne you may place him in line for it," his father says, refilling the horn. "I will not."

That is surely a threat. There's nothing else it could be. Loki swallows and then accepts the refilled horn and takes a drink to cover the act.

He pulls it away afterward, resting his arm on his knee again and dangling the horn from the fingertips of one hand, and shifts the conversation back to his original purpose. "Why is Balder sent into battles? Why not keep him here, in some soft duty where he'll never see a scratch?"

"Impossible," Odin replies with resignation. "All noble children must be trained in combat. Even with the worst teachers, he was too skilled to reject without raising attention." He exhales harshly. "Midgard's tales hadn't started yet. I still thought it was possible to conceal him."

Loki could ask why he's _still_ being sent out now that that possibility is dead, but the answer is obvious. For now, it's thought of as the Midgard tale: influential, but ultimately not enough to override Aesir truth.

But if too much credence is given to it, if it grew clear that this is another place where Midgard and Asgard intersect, then it would become an entirely different matter. Then Asgard's enemies wouldn't need an army to defeat the realm; they would only need one successful assassin.

He nods in understanding, tapping his nails against the drinking horn. "And loss of a limb, to render the matter moot--too risky, correct? There could still be fevers, infection."

Odin gives him another long look, and Loki belatedly realizes that he is speaking of dismembering his parents' son and his own somewhat-brother. But when his father replies, it is not a chastisement for the callousness.

"Eir could prevent any consequent disease," his father answers. "Especially if she happened to be well-stocked before the injury occurred. But it's too late for that now. Some will wonder about the convenience even if it were a true accident.

"...Earlier could have been a different matter," Odin adds quietly, gazing out the window again with a slump in his frame. "Before the Midgard story was too well-known."

He drains the wine and lets the horn fall to his lap with a resigned twist to his mouth. "I rebuke Thor for lacking ruthlessness, but even I have made that error. And now we all must live with the risks.

"Perhaps a foster-brother that's been missed," Odin muses, more to himself than Loki, waving his hand over the fire. The runes that flicker up within are faint and at a bad angle to him, but the affinity has grown enough in Loki that he distinguishes them regardless. They offer no clarity. "Or Thor will lose control in a battle and can't be stopped in time. Perhaps...."

He says nothing more.

Loki tenses against a flinch. "I wouldn't."

He forces his mouth into a half-smirk. "After all. The stories don't end well for me afterward."

"The outcome would be the same whether intent or accident," Odin says. "A thrown knife that glances off another's shield; a blind strike at someone coming up behind you before you can tell they're an ally."

Loki stares down at the wine in his horn. When his father says nothing else, he at last takes a large swallow and makes himself ask his next question. "The prophecies mention a Hod."

"Yes," Odin replies shortly. "They were twins." His fingers tighten on his drinking horn. "It has been dealt with."

. . . So this matter _has_ been grave enough to be worth filicide.

Loki takes another drink and thinks perhaps Thor is safer on Midgard.

His relationship with their father may be contentious, but Thor's has been strained by violence. Better for him to be farther from Odin's reach, until Loki has finished revising his plans with this new information.

The pathways will be only a brief aid, not the safety he hoped for. Not if Odin would rather see him and Thor dead than unleash Ragnarök. He'll have to determine a way to escape Hildskialf's sight no matter what kind of magic it takes, and make sure it won't kill Thor or himself with long exposure.

"It means nothing in the end," Odin adds.

Loki sets the considerations aside and concentrates on the conversation at hand, keenly aware that his father could interpret his expression to piece out his thoughts if he isn't careful.

Odin shakes his head. "With or without him, the prophecy will be fulfilled. We can only determine how close it is."

"There must be some way to cheat it," Loki replies. " _Something_ in the wording must give leeway."

His father barely quirks the corner of his mouth. "Spoken like a trickster."

Loki huffs into his horn.

"I don't intend to cheat it," his father says, and more wine spills on Loki's gloves as he fumbles the horn in his grip. "I want Midgard's version to come to pass."

Loki stares at him.

Odin gazes back over the rim of his horn. "You've read both versions of the prophecies," he says. "I've seen the tale you were copying from Midgard, the one that's been overwhelming the rest. You know where the differences lie, do you not?"

"--Yes," Loki agrees, unsure what this is a test of. He has lost this game completely; his only hope now is to end it before he's stripped of every piece he has.

But when he starts to list them, Odin shakes his head.

"No," he corrects. "At the very end."

Loki frowns briefly and sifts through his memories, trying to determine just what part his father considers 'the end.'

"Our prophecies end with the sun and moon and stars swallowed, all land sinking into the sea, all dead after the final battle," Odin says. "But the Midgard ones continue."

He taps a thumb idly against the golden horn in his grip, staring past Loki again to the window and the ravens waiting impatiently outside.

"If that story takes root, with enough time, it will entwine itself to our prophecies," Odin says. "It only appends, not rewrites; it won't be impossible. More and more, Midgard speaks of us again."

_"The right time for who?" Thor had said._

"Only to save humans," Loki points out. "And a few gods, some that don't exist. --Thor doesn't have children, does he?"

"Not to my knowledge," Odin replies. "Not yet."

Loki grips his horn tighter again. The old, inert power within it pulses once with the streak of jealousy running through him.

"That may be part of what's holding it back," Odin remarks. "We lack all the players. That isn't the part that concerns me. It's the gods who are saved."

His father gives him a significant look. "That Midgard poet claimed some will survive the final battle, and others return from Hel, did he not?"

Loki nods once, and Odin smiles very faintly.

"But he never said how," he continues. "There is our leeway.

"So long as some are assured to survive the end, there are options. Possibilities to be manipulated," Odin murmurs. "If Balder is to return from the dead, others should be able to do the same."

He drifts a hand over the fire again, concentrating on the flames; and this time the runes within speak of such archaic magic that even Loki cannot understand it.

He is reminded viscerally just how old and conniving and powerful a god Odin truly is.

Loki shudders.

He drains the rest of his mead a few breaths later, his heart still thudding harder in his ribs. Odin studies him over the fire once more, then leans back in the high seat.

"These are all only thoughts," he says, breaking the silence of the room. "Balder lives; the Fimbulvetr has not come. Plans are considered and discarded as new events occur."

Loki only nods again, leery of speaking anything that could become tangled in this wide web of Odin's that he's only now seeing more clearly. He always knew he was a piece in his god's hand; he had not realized how vast Odin's game board is.

The ravens outside croak in aggravated restlessness. Loki and Odin share one more drink, turning the conversation to smaller matters--the coming yearly tributes, soon-to-visit diplomats--and then Loki returns his horn and prepares to depart.

He hesitates after standing. This is first time since he was told the truth of his birth that he can remember Odin being so openly honest with him; it may be the last, given the extreme circumstances in both cases. He may never have the chance to ask again.

Odin glances over. Loki shifts on his feet and then clenches a hand by his side, beneath his cape and out of sight.

"If there are others," he starts, and then he must pause to swallow when his voice tries to crack. "--For the throne. Why so insistent it is I or no one?"

"Because then Laufey cannot demand you back as an unlawful hostage," Odin replies; and Loki jerks around and stares at him.

"He cannot attempt to strip Asgard of its uncontested crown heir without inciting war," his father says, gazing at him steadily. "And he has learned the costs of that from me."

Odin rests his hands on the high seat's pillars, still not releasing Loki's gaze. "If you wish to put Thor in line for the throne once you are king, you may. No blood claim can override your position at that point. But I will not do it."

"I...." Loki looks away, swallowing hard.

At last he manages to nod. ". . . I understand."

Odin regards him quietly for a moment.

"You and I argue frequently," he says. "It has consequences. But two sons of mine have been dead to me since the day they were born, Loki. I do not wish to lose the two I have remaining."

Loki only nods, throat tight.

They part then. Loki returns to his quarters and sends away the servants for the rest of the day, unable to bear any company with how raw he feels. He sleeps fitfully that night when he manages to doze at all.  
  
  
It's not long before curiosity drives him to find the other illegitimate children. Loki does nothing with the information aside from retain it; if nothing else, it explains why Midgard chose Tyr as worthy of worship.

~

His brother returns from Midgard soon after, in the worst possible timing. Loki's plans are still in shambles with nothing solid yet to replace them, and now he must plot for Thor's safety in addition.

The only fortunate aspect is that his brother has gone straight to his quarters, speaking to no more than Heimdall and a few gods along the streets on his way to the palace. Loki only learns of his arrival because one of his servants noticed Thor crossing a corridor and mentions it while setting to cleaning.

Loki abandons the spell he was working on, leaving the ingredients scattered across the tabletop, and goes straight to Thor's wing before he can begin second-guessing his decision.

Thor is visibly tired from his journey. He's still washing up and has yet to change from his Midgard clothes, but he manages a smile when Loki enters his main room. "Brother. Forgive me, but I'd prefer a rest before dinner to--"

"You should have told me you were coming," Loki interrupts in a low voice. "Ride out with me, now. Before news of your return spreads."

Thor's started to frown at his words, but by the end he's watching Loki carefully. "What's he done?"

Loki almost presses a hand over Thor's mouth. He halts himself only because servants are in the rooms around them, bustling to change Thor's bed linens and prepare his quarters. There are too many others here. " _Now_ ," he says, even lower.

"Yes," Thor nods. He reaches for the discarded Midgardian coat slung over a chair. "I missed Asgard. That brief sight of her on the way here wasn't enough," he smiles. "Let's have a quick ride before dinner."

Loki watches him as Thor tells the servants he's leaving briefly and they can slow their pace, and thinks again of how skillfully his brother deceived him on his departure.

He forces himself to put the thought away. He's already begun; he must see it through.  
  
  
Thor follows him without questions as they seize horses from the stables and Loki leads him out past the city walls, first at a walk and then in a canter, heading resolutely toward the cave. His brother is so unnaturally quiet that Loki glances over several times with a twisting nervousness building in his chest, unable to quell the irrational fear that Thor has already disappeared.

Loki draws his horse up at the copse of trees near the hillock and dismounts. He stares at the mound while Thor follows suit.

Its smooth upward slope splits abruptly at the top, where a fissure was formed during a battle long before Loki was born. Inside it, barely accessible with his frame--will it even work with Thor's bulk?--is the crevice that connects to a cave in another realm.

Thor gives the spot a searching look as they tie their horses to the trees. When he's satisfied, he looks to Loki. "What's he done, Brother?"

Loki shakes his head and gestures briefly at the sky. The birds passing above don't include ravens; but still. "Follow me."

Thor frowns a little deeper, but obeys.

He gives the crevice a doubting look when Loki hunches and twists and begins to shoulder his way through. "Loki, what...?"

" **Try** ," he orders, reaching back to catch Thor's wrist and tug him forward. It's only five steps before the space opens up more into the cave.

Thor expels a long, slow breath, easing as much air as he can from his lungs, and follows. Loki has to face forward, but he can hear Thor behind him, grunting and hissing as the rock sides rip at his clothes and skin. Loki's armor scrapes loudly.

Thor jerks in his grip between one step and the next. Loki twists his head around, heart beating harder, one hand already wrenched up for a spell even though he isn't sure how to aim without hitting either himself or Thor--but Thor is only staring at the stone in disbelief. "What is this?"

Loki yanks harder on his wrist until he starts moving again.

He doesn't let go until they're well into the cave. Thor steps past him, crossing out of the opening to stare up at the sky. ". . . This is Midgard."

"Is it?" Loki manages, nerves frayed. He shouldn't have done this, this was all he had in defense of his brother. If Thor turns on him in the future he'll have no escape, it'll be imprisonment or execution for sure, Thor would never be foolish enough to risk just exiling him-- "I thought so. I hadn't time to explore yet."

"This is your...." Thor turns to stare at him, and Loki takes a step back before he can stop himself--this was all he had against Thor, the only truly valuable secret, he shouldn't have done this his brother has always been better at making friends and allies than him he's lost everything now--

Thor catches him, a hand grasping tight against his neck. Loki freezes up and subconsciously shifts his hands in preparation to cast as Thor steps close, so near Loki can feel the heat of him despite the chilled air.

"Loki," his brother says heavily, " _what has he done?_ "

Loki swallows hard.

He curls a hand around Thor's wrist a shallow breath later. Thor eases his grip some, but doesn't pull away. Loki has to swallow again before he can speak.

"Nothing," he says.

Thor lowers his brows.

Loki shakes his head faintly, fingers still curled around Thor's wrist. He can feel the warm thud of Thor's pulse under his fingertips through the flimsy Midgard cloth, a strangely intense sensation; in a distant part of his mind, he tries to remember the last time he allowed someone to touch him outside a spar. Months? Years? Surely not. "Nothing," he repeats. "Not yet."

The story comes out half-gibberish at first, making Loki increasingly frustrated in embarrassment, until Thor leads them away from the cave toward the jagged lava stones farther up the narrow valley. Loki settles on one and exhales through his teeth until he's finally composed himself enough to make some damned sense.

Thor listens silently as he describes his last conversation with their father, his brows lowered and his hands curled in loose fists on his knees. He's visibly growing angrier as Loki talks, though he keeps it leashed tight. Loki finds himself pausing more and more once again, groping for words in distraction as he tries to speak everything before Heimdall spots them while also keeping a focus on his brother's tension.

When he finishes, Thor folds his hands together, glowering at the ground. Loki shifts restlessly and pushes off his seat, pacing to put more distance between them.

". . . Should I be surprised?" Thor asks at last.

Loki pauses with a confused frown and looks over.

Thor stares at his hands, tapping a thumb restlessly against the other. His voice remains quiet as he continues: "I should, shouldn't I. A worthy son would assume better of his father."

Loki hesitates a few more breaths before beginning to pace again. "I wouldn't know," he mumbles, trying to smirk but hearing the words fall flat regardless. "I've never been accused of that."

"You've been a better son that he's deserved," Thor says, so low it's almost inaudible; and the look he gives Loki with the words is so dark, so full of memories of their youth, that Loki has to turn away after a breath before it crushes him.

He makes a vague gesture he doesn't know the meaning of, composing himself. "No. Nonetheless. That's his intent. So--don't go into battles with Balder until I can devise something."

He hears the frown in Thor's voice. "'Devise'?"

Loki jerks his shoulders, staring out at the lava field. This edges on treason--if Thor chose to use it against him.... "Just in case. These won't be enough, not for Ragnarök."

Thor is silent for so long that Loki's shoulders tighten involuntarily, a creeping tension rising up his spine.

He toys agitatedly with the edge of his cape, consciously fighting to keep his hands from falling into a defensive position or drifting near his knives. This is **Thor**. His brother. Not his enemy.

His rival. But not his enemy. 

Thor at last answers. "I won't."

Loki exhales silently, tension still present. Thor adds, "You are not alone in this, Brother."

 _Not yet_ , Loki thinks involuntarily, before shaking the thought off. He adjusts one of his gloves.

"Loki," Thor says heavier, pushing to his feet. Loki nods once curtly.

"I heard," he replies.

"You hear many things you still refuse to believe," Thor mutters, coming over. Loki stays as he is, so Thor circles around until they face each other once more. "Was there anything else?"

Loki arches an eyebrow. "This wasn't enough?"

Thor huffs, but tilts his head briefly in acknowledgement. "I suppose so."

He cups Loki's neck again a breath later, still watching him. His gaze is too intense for Loki to bear; he forgot how Thor always seems to see right through his deflections and lies and deceptions, how his brother has always been the one who's known him best since they were children. He leans back involuntarily, glancing past Thor's shoulder to the wide lava field. They are alone here.

Thor's palm flexes against his neck, but he doesn't pull Loki back in. Nor does he let go. "Thank you, Brother."

Loki only twitches a shoulder again, still unable to face his gaze. He hates feeling like this, leaden-tongued, dumb, stripped of his core power. No one has been able to make him feel this way for decades upon centuries, save his family.

_If he were no longer chained to them, no one could ever--_

Loki swallows hard and shakes that thought away much more vehemently. Thor tightens his grip.

"You are not alone, Loki," he repeats quietly.

Loki makes a terse, ugly noise before he can stop himself. "I have been all these years."

Thor inhales slowly through his nose, eyes drifting closed for a breath. He doesn't let Loki pull away when he tries.

"I thought you would be happier without my presence here to threaten you," Thor says, and Loki jerks away harder. Thor catches his upper arm, trapping him in place, pinning him with that too-intense focus once more. "I was wrong. I would not have left for so long if I'd realized what was happening."

"But you would have left," Loki bites off, glad his voice doesn't shake with the words.

"...Yes," Thor agrees, and Loki tenses to hide a flinch. "For less time. And under other circumstances."

Loki twists his mouth up in a sneer but doesn't bother trying to wrench free again. He can never defeat Thor in contests of raw strength; he always must twist them to battles of something else to have any hope of winning. "How _is_ your mother, by the way?"

Thor's hands tighten on him much harder for a heartbeat, making Loki inhale sharply. Then he forces his grip to relax again.

"Mother lives here in Asgard," Thor replies evenly, and this time Loki cannot hide his flinch, cut by the twofold reminder of what a poor son he is. "But Jord is fair. ...Weary of war, but used to it."

Loki makes a rough noise in the back of his throat and tries to wrench loose once more. This time, Thor releases him.

It leaves him chilled where Thor's palms were. Loki clenches his hands into fists, holding himself still against a shiver.

Thor studies him for several long breaths while Loki glares past him. Why are they so damnably isolated here? He forgot how overbearing Thor's presence is, how it swallows him up if he lowers his guard even a moment.

"Did you think I would stop considering us brothers after I learned of this?" Thor asks him gently.

He could not have cut Loki any deeper if he'd driven an axe right through him.

His skin feels like ice where Thor's palms no longer are, a bitter, brutal reminder that it would not be so sensitive in his jotun form; and abruptly Loki cannot stand this ambiguity anymore. There's no value to a lie if everyone knows it as such.

"You know what I am," Loki spits, the words slicing him open further as they spill out.

Thor is silent.

Loki endures it for several heartbeats and then can bear it no longer, the urge to flee swelling up rawly in him alongside his rising panic. He wrenches once roughly at a glove, unwilling to give any more clarification than that. If Thor really didn't know, never knew, if he has been wrong all these years--

Thor glances at his hands, then exhales briefly and catches his eyes again.

"If you mean that you happened to be born in Jotunheim, Brother, then yes," Thor says, holding his gaze, "I knew."

The shudder that wracks through Loki nearly drives him to his knees.

He tries to laugh reflexively, always his first defense, but the sound catches and clogs in his throat, turning into a harsh and meaningless noise that makes his eyes water. Thor reaches for him again.

Loki pushes his arm away but Thor strides inside his reach, catching him by the shoulders. He digs his fingers in so tight when Loki tries to twist loose that Loki winces and falls still.

"Release me," he snaps harshly.

"And have you flee me again?" Thor asks, with an attempted smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "No, Brother."

Loki winces again. "Enough," he grits. "You've always been a poor liar."

"I am not a liar because I refuse to throw away our whole lives together," Thor says flatly. "As if circumstances of birth outweigh years of life."

"They **will** ," Loki snarls, hating the tears he cannot stop and the chill they bring to his face. It's as if he's reverting to that skin just by speaking of it, as if their surroundings and having the one person who he never wanted to know the truth acknowledge it will trap him in that form forever, permanently denounced and known. He cannot _bear_ this. "When it's found out--"

"No one need know if you don't wish them to," Thor cuts him off. "If someone learns and tries to use it against you, tries to claim you aren't a prince of Asgard and the rightful heir, they will answer to me."

Loki inhales shortly, eyes widening.

He keeps them on Thor's chest, focused on the few scars visible where the rock passage tore his clothes, unable to meet his eyes, unwilling to learn if there's deceit or sincerity there. If he doesn't know, he doesn't have to face it. If he doesn't know, he doesn't have to trust.

Thor finally exhales with a growl. He pulls a hand away and rips at the cuff of his shirt and coat with his teeth until it tears, still keeping Loki's other shoulder in a firm grip.

Thor holds out his arm between them, baring his wrist. "If blood is what matters most to you, Brother," Thor says forcefully, "then share it with me."

A shiver runs up Loki's spine as he stares.

They would be brothers beyond any argument then, bound by blood and fosterage and millennia of time together--

 _You'll regret it, by the end_ , a voice in the back of his mind murmurs. _All bonds will break for Ragnarök._

_Even that one._

"--No," Loki says hoarsely, knocking Thor's forearm aside with a shaking hand. "That isn't--it isn't necessary."

"Is it not?" Thor asks, still scrutinizing his face. Loki swallows hard.

"No," he manages to answer. "I believe you."

"You heard me," Thor replies quietly. "You hear many things you refuse to believe."

Loki hisses a breath through his teeth and shakes his head. "Who told you?" he orders.

Thor gives him a look for the deflection, but answers regardless. "Mjölnir."

...Well. He'll have to break his vow to kill whoever told Thor. Loki is fairly sure destroying Mjölnir is beyond his ability to survive doing successfully.

This time the laugh does make it out his throat, though the ragged edge to it provides him no shield. He resists the urge to pull at his gloves again. "Of course."

"Our parents are of Asgard, the same as we are," Thor says, crouching slightly to catch his gaze again. "Where and by whom we were born will never eradicate that."

HIs brother's urgent sincerity is damaged by the fact that he fights down a yawn after speaking. Loki snickers once again involuntarily.

Then he exhales again, tension still thrumming through him.

"We have to return," Loki states. "It's already been too long. Heimdall's surely told him you're back by now."

Thor looks like he wants to argue; but instead he closes his eyes, and makes himself nod.

"Very well," he agrees. Now that he's listening closer, Loki can hear how deep the weariness in his voice runs.

It's still several breaths later before Thor finally releases his shoulder.  
  
  
They squeeze their way back through the fissure and ride to Asgard at a walk, the uncertain silence broken by Thor's increasingly frequent yawns.

"I was sincere," his brother says unexpectedly, pulling Loki out of his distracted scan of the skies.

"About?" he replies. Thor proclaimed his sincerity on many of the things he said; which one does he need to be certain he's convinced Loki of?

Was there _ever_ a time in his life he did not see manipulation everywhere?

Probably as a child. He wouldn't have been experienced enough to spot it then.

Thor forcibly stifles another yawn, starting to look vexed. At his own weariness? Or at Loki's doubt? "I wouldn't have left for so long if I'd realized what was happening."

"Mm," Loki replies, reaching out to urge Thor's horse forward when it stops to nibble at a bush. Thor is just barely holding the reins, not guiding the steed at all anymore. "What did you mean by that?"

"The effects," Thor answers, making more of an effort to keep his horse walking. "So few were ready to genuinely believe in us. Our names just kept being stolen by petty, squabbling kingdoms, no matter what I tried."

"You did your best," Loki replies, keeping a hand on the reins. "They can't be forced to heed us."

An ugly smile twists across Thor's mouth. "Not according to _his_ followers. The things they did to my friends, they're still doing--"

"They are his problem," Loki interrupts, because the last thing he cares to deal with is Asgard entering a war like that. "Your worshipers are all in Valhalla or Fólkvanger."

"Not all," Thor says lowly. "I couldn't keep some from Hel."

"Women," Loki dismisses. "The weak. It was their choice to die soft. You did your best, Thor. Father can't argue that."

Thor rubs his eyes in frustration. "He shouldn't have told you those things."

Loki stops himself in time from looking over, and pulls his hand away. "And why not?"

Why would Thor object to him having such useful information?

Thor may not prefer their parents' company, but he still spends time in it. Even when Loki isn't present. And for all their raising might mean, it's still Thor who's Odin's blood-son. Thor who has a blood-tie of kinship to Balder.

Thor has tricked him successfully before. And it isn't _Thor_ who kills Balder in the Midgard tales. If Thor knew of all this from their father before Loki told him, if he's shared with Thor his most dangerous secret only to have exposed himself as a threat to Odin--if he's been wrong all these years--

"Because you're his _son_ ," Thor answers. "Not his brother."

Loki's horse whinnies and tosses its head when he inadvertently jerks it to a halt.

Thor stops his as well, pulling it alongside where Loki's steed is snorting in displeasure, blocking the path. Loki stares down at his hands clenched tight around the reins, gritting his jaw, not sure whether he wants to laugh or scream.

Alluding to Odin's trysts in their conversation? Why had he treated that as a joke? Why wasn't he scornful on Frigga's--his mother's--behalf? It was Odin who reminded him he was his son, in response and then over and over afterward. It was Loki who had to remind himself to think of Balder as a relation and not merely a problem to be suitably dealt with.

Has he altered **_this much_** without realizing? Has he let humans have this much power over him?

He jolts when Thor grasps his shoulder again, tensing beneath it.

"It was easier for me," Thor says. "I could see what they were doing when they kept retelling their stories." He gives Loki a small smile. "And even then, half the time I would forget you weren't the elder of the two of us."

When Loki doesn't answer, his smile fades.

"I thought it was just the arguments you two always had," his older brother tells him. "I would have returned earlier if I'd realized even he was feeling it. I promise, Loki, I came back as soon as I began to wonder after what you said the last time we met."

Loki frowns at that, and finally looks at him fully again. "What?"

Thor is silent at first, giving him a long, searching look. Loki frowns harder, uncomfortable with the sensation that he is being weighed, that he's facing an unknown test he might fail.

"Has he spoken to you of your coronation yet?" Thor finally asks.

Loki narrows his eyes. "Some."

"Is the date set?"

Is this a trap? "Of course not. He's still hale; there's no reason for him to pass the crown on yet."

"No," Thor says, very quietly, almost too low to be heard over the rising wind around them. "He's ill. He has been ever since he put off the Odinsleep last time. It was worsening even before I left."

This time Loki is silent.

". . . I thought you _must_ have known, until after that night," Thor says at last. "Haven't you seen his hands tremble? The way he leans more on Gungnir now?"

Loki thinks back through his memories, then closes his eyes and draws a long breath.

...It's not surprising Thor would notice such minuscule changes first. After all, his brother is the one who has reason to be even more hypersensitive to their father's presence. Thor is the one who learned to watch Odin's hands as well as his moods.

If nothing else, he's learned over these last couple months that others attribute far more knowledge of secrets and information to him than he actually possesses. Useful; he'll need to keep cultivating that.

"You are not alone, Brother," Thor says, voice still low beneath the wind. Loki forces his eyes open to look at him. "I cannot change the past. But things can change between us into the future, if we have no more secrets we think we must keep from each other. We can go forward differently."

There is still one rather significant secret between them; but at this moment Loki is almost glad of it.

He is not Thor. Baring truths does not bring him relief--it leaves him feeling raw, exposed, too known, too easily trapped or manipulated or hurt. This last secret is at least one lingering shred, one remaining layer around himself, that he still possesses.

It's also the one that would surely drive his brother away for good. Perhaps Thor can overlook his jotun heritage by telling himself Loki hardly chose to be born as such--but he _has_ chosen this perverted attraction to his own brother. That is far more unforgivable.

He cups his hand around Thor's own, squeezing it briefly. Loki nods.

His brother looks as if he's waiting for more answer than that; but slowly, as the silence stretches out between them, his expression fades. Thor closes his eyes for a heartbeat, then rubs them once more.

He gives Loki's shoulder a brief squeeze while fighting down another yawn. Loki releases his hand when Thor starts to draw it away.

Loki urges his horse forward again, and Thor shifts his own and falls back alongside him as they resume their return to the palace.

Slowly, the wind dies down.

~

Heimdall sends word when he notices that his sons are visible once more, riding back from an utterly unremarkable part of the countryside. Odin makes a note to scour the area thoroughly once Frigga can distract Loki long enough for him to depart Asgard unnoticed. He notes as well that Thor has finally induced Loki to share this particular trick with him.

Not that that's any use to him. His eldest is leery of him as it is; Thor would become his unconditional enemy if he thought Odin were trying to manipulate him into betraying his brother.

Frigga will need to keep Thor with her as well for him to safely examine the area. He can only trust he'll have enough time with them both in her hands. If they're allowed to separate, he'll once again have to defend on two fronts.

It's the same problem it has ever been: having Thor within his easy reach means he is also within the berserker's own.

Tonight, though, it poses little risk. By the time his sons return to the palace, dusk is falling; Thor has no time to rest, only to wash and change before he must make his way to the dining hall. Odin measures his pace to meet him on the route to it.

They've barely exchanged greetings when Frigga's servants redirect them to her quarters. Apparently his wife has cancelled the evening meal in favor of a small one in her rooms, for their family only. Hlín cheerfully informs him that the only envoys currently in Asgard are ones whom it's in Odin's favor to keep unsure for a night, and that Freyja is already entertaining those Einherjar who would have eaten with them at Fólkvanger. Odin purses his mouth against a snort of aggrieved amusement.

The relief that loosens his son's frame at the news is noticeable even though Thor has positioned himself in his blind spot. Odin tilts his head enough to glance peripherally at Thor once more, takes in the fatigue and mistrust he's working to conceal in his presence, and decides Frigga chose well. He lets the matter stand, whistles to Geri and Freki, and allows Hlín to lead them to his wife's quarters.

Still, when Frigga smiles at them as they arrive and gestures to the benches at her table, Odin raises an eyebrow and asks dryly, "Are you planning to turn it around after I'm seated?"

Thor stifles an amused noise as he enters the room, and Odin finds himself briefly both pleased and somewhat annoyed that his son remembers that particular embarrassing battle.

"Only if you lie down on it," Frigga replies with a quirk of her mouth, and this time Thor chuckles openly. Odin hrumphs and settles at the table.

Another servant guides Loki in soon after, the edge of chariness in his smile only partly mitigated by the fact that it's Frigga's quarters they're in. For one so quick to conflate constancy with tedium and loathe both, Loki is ever suspicious when any habits or traditions change without his direct influence. Always such a canny creature; and yet it never serves him as well as it could, since he won't give up his fondness for chaos and refuses to act with the patience and restraint that would hone it to his best advantage. Not that Odin is inclined to warn his brother of such anymore.

\-- _His son_ is not a creature.

Odin tightens his grip around Gungnir as Loki trades pleasantries with Frigga while he takes his seat, then forces himself to set the spear down when Thor tenses and shifts further away from him. He doesn't miss how Loki's gaze darts to his brother briefly before he glances away and pretends he noticed nothing.

Always such a canny god.  
  
  
As he expected, over the course of the meal the tension that's been simmering within his sons since Thor returned and Loki subsequently disappeared them both eases without evaporating entirely. Frigga is extremely skilled at what she does, but some miracles are impossible.

His younger son is palpably agitated beneath his easy demeanor and his entertaining stories of all that's occurred during Thor's absence. Odin sips frequently from his cup to conceal his frown as he studies Loki. The nerves don't seem like anxiety that Odin has discovered this latest twist to his oldest trick--it's focused primarily toward Thor.

And yet there's something familiar about it that Odin can't place. At least not until he has the time to ponder it.

If anything is bothering Thor to the same level, it's impossible to discern beneath the lethargy swamping him. When a servant glances into the room a third time to check whether Thor has finally finished with his salmon so they can bring in the boar, Loki is no longer pretending he doesn't see the weariness, and Odin is equal parts impressed and concerned that Thor can force himself to continue on this long. Frigga reaches over the table and cups Thor's hand.

"Would you prefer to rest?" she asks gently. "We're glad to see you again, but don't let that be reason to exhaust yourself."

Thor lets his knife fall to the table with enervated relief. "Yes," he agrees. "Thank you."

Frigga slides free of the bench as Thor pushes up to his feet, going around to hug him tightly. "It's good to have you back," she smiles. "Join us again at breakfast, or later if you need more rest."

The fact that Thor smiles back genuinely and returns the embrace as he promises to do so does not change the fact that he holds himself straight under Frigga's touch. Odin takes another sip of wine.

They exchange farewells as Frigga sees Thor out; and for the time being, Odin turns his attention to his second son.

~

Thor makes it to his room without noticeably staggering mainly by stubbornness. It's a relief to see it's already prepared for him: there's warm water steaming in a brazier, the sheets are turned down, and a servant is tending the small fire in another brazier by the bed. He comes over immediately when Thor starts undoing his armor.

Thor frowns as the god struggles to help, his knotted fingers fumbling with one of the fastenings on his chest plate. He never had an elderly servant--yet he looks familiar.

"Who are you?" Thor orders, shifting aside to undo the fastening himself.

The god smiles nervously. "Thialfi, Lord Thor."

Thor stills.

He catches the man's chin a few breaths later and forces his head up to look at him properly. He belatedly remembers to soften his grip when Thialfi winces in pain.

He's aged. By a few decades? More than that? Thor was gone...less than a century. The years blurred together, surrounded by passing strangers. How long had it been before he saw Loki once more?

"What happened to the apples?" he demands, and Thialfi flinches again at the rising ire in his voice. Thor releases him.

The man starts to step back before catching himself. "I..." Thialfi starts uncomfortably. "I think eventually they...forgot. Idunn gave us a couple whenever I asked," he adds quickly. "But I didn't want to keep pestering her. They worked well enough if we cut them up."

'Us'? --His sister. "Where's Roskva?"

Thialfi gives him another hesitant smile. "She injured her hip cleaning a few months ago. But I can bring her--"

Thor cuts him short with a shake of his head. "Where are my bags?"

Thialfi shifts to the side. "I'm sorry, I hadn't unpacked them yet, I thought you would be away for--"

"There's one in them. Part of one," Thor tells him, rubbing a hand over his face and wishing his eyes didn't burn with exhaustion. "Take that to her, and then go to Idunn and tell her I want five more tonight. Split them between you."

Thialfi bows. Thor can hear his bones pop as he does. "Yes, Lord Thor."

Thialfi has behaved fearfully enough around him already, as if he were once more that boy in the farmhouse confessing to breaking Tanngrisnir's bone. Thor forces down his anger until the man has left his quarters.

They _forgot_ his servants were mortal the same as all of them? That the only difference was they would age and sicken faster?

Of course. Odin always disapproved of Thor giving them Idunn's apples, dismissing the two as having no place in Asgard. Frigga has more than enough to oversee without bothering with a few spare servants; and Loki is always too preoccupied with his own plans and concerns to spend a thought on any human who doesn't directly beseech him.

But he **does** answer if they do. Why didn't Thialfi or Roskva go to him? Loki should have answered them favorably, surely he still has some fondness for them, if only because they were his audience to seeing Thor humiliated--

Thor presses his hands harder to his face.

He staggers to his bed and sits down heavily on it, and tries to remember if that trip really happened or if it's yet another tale eating away his memories.

First rulers coerce and threaten and kill his worshipers to further their own desires, and now they even dare try to break his own mind.

The trip must have happened. How else would Thialfi and Roskva be here?

Did he go with someone other than his brother? Loki rejected his suggestions to travel more and more frequently as the years passed--perhaps. No, he must have. Thor would never have asked Loki to join him in killing frost giants.

But then, who was with him? No matter how he scrutinizes the memory, he can't imagine it being anyone but his brother there. Who else would have kept quiet when he noticed Thialfi stealing marrow just for entertainment's sake, or would have dared make fun of Thor when they slept the night in the glove? Who else would have yawned just to aggravate Thor more when they were ignored in Utgard-Loki's hall?

But he never would have asked Loki to come with him to kill frost giants.

. . . Unless it was before he knew.

How long have Thialfi and Roskva been with him? Did he truly have Mjölnir then? Or was it his old axe he'd been carrying?

He can't remember. He'll ask them later. Thor wrenches his way out of the rest of his armor and leaves it on the floor, sinking down onto the bed in visceral relief.

He's fast asleep long before Thialfi returns.

~

Loki remains agitated through the rest of the dinner, but it decreases significantly after Thor's departure. Odin begins to suspect the cause is another argument between them, rather Loki fearing a snare has closed a little tighter around him.

He still plans to scour that part of Asheim. As soon as possible, before the lingering traces of magic from whatever spell Loki used evaporate entirely.

Their son takes his leave once the meal is over, while the servants are still removing the dishes. Odin lingers, standing by the balcony and staring out at Asgard as he finishes his last cup of wine, absently scratching Geri behind the ear while the servants put away the table and benches.

"You never drink that much unless you want to conceal what you're thinking," Frigga remarks, once they've finished and left. She sends Fulla off as well, leaving the wing emptied of all but the two of them. "What bothers you?"

Odin turns away from the balcony and crosses the room, telling his wolves to leave. He closes the door behind them. "Back half a day, and they're already fighting."

Frigga murmurs in resigned agreement and settles by her spinning wheel. 

"It could be worse," she suggests, picking up a basket of raw wool waiting to be carded. "Their fights could be driven by genuine hatred. At least they're ultimately fond of each other."

Odin grips Gungnir tighter unconsciously.

"They're too fond of each other," he replies at last, almost too low to be heard.

Frigga pauses, still, for a long, long breath. 

". . . Yes," she agrees at last.

Odin finally glances over, and she resumes carding the wool.

He leans heavier on the spear for several breaths, then goes and slumps into the chair across from her and stares at her hands as she works. She has ever been the steadfast one of them; the realms would be better served if their sons had less of him and more of her in them.

"...So this is what my line comes to," he mutters.

"It could be worse," she repeats. "One of them must marry long enough to beget heirs. Our line has survived regicide and patricide; it will endure this as well."

His grip tenses on Gungnir once more.

"--'Kin will fight and kill each other, siblings do incest,'" Odin murmurs. "Of course. If I began this path, why am I surprised my sons continue on it?"

Frigga abandons the wheel and comes over, laying her hands on his own. He sees her draw a breath at the tremor she feels, and tightens his grip further to stifle it. "They are aware of the prophecies too," she soothes. "They're no keener to spark the Fimbulvetr than you. They've had restraint so far, I believe. They will continue to."

" _Loki_ has restraint," Odin retorts. "Thor no longer cares, if he ever did. And how much longer can he be expected to keep it? He was always the chaotic sort, and these damn humans and their revisions will not cease to paint him as the end of us."

He pulls away from her touch and glowers at his hands. "They strip away my aspects that fail to suit their petty, transient morals. I wake and no longer remember magic I learned that isn't **proper** for their idea of a leader." Odin clenches his fists. "If even I am losing myself, how much longer can that child endure? How much longer can any of the rest continue?"

Frigga takes his hand again. "Thor . . . is taking the changes on Midgard too personally," she says at last. "He'll recover. And Loki is not a child anymore, for all that he's still young," his wife reminds him, even though she knows very well why Odin continually makes himself think of their son as such.

She squeezes his fingers until he finally looks at her. "We've endured their jumbled mess of stories this long. We won't be undone by them now." She quirks an eyebrow. "I may have lost my ability to speak prophesy, but I do still know some things of fate."

Odin grips her hand back and gives her the kindest look he has to him these days; but he cannot make himself believe her words as he once could.

He can see how the lack of faith cuts her when Frigga closes her eyes. This void of hope in his heart has grown and deepened as he feels their footsteps forced onto an ever narrowing path toward Ragnarök; some days, he fears it will break her before it does him. He can accept his death in Fenrir's jaws if he must, but to have to watch that....

No prophecy has said directly what occurs to her at Ragnarök. So long as she is on the other side, he will find his way back.

Odin brings her hands to his lips and kisses them gently. 

"Fate isn't set yet," he makes himself say, forcing his words to sound as though he's certain of their truth. It's an easy enough task when speaking to his Einherjar or his advisors, the Aesir or their sons; it's only ever her who he sometimes cannot successfully lie to. "So long as their stories play chaos with the prophecies, there are things I can do."

Frigga slips her fingers free and strokes his cheek, and Odin feels the stone his heart is becoming soften a fraction at the wistful hope in the touch.

He stays in her quarters for the rest of the evening, remaining in the hall to tell an old tale from their youth while she cards and spending that night in her bed, turning his back on the future he knows is coming for them all to hold onto this small moment of shelter and peace.

And in the morning he wakes and once again puts on his armor and takes up Gungnir, and resumes his role as king of Asgard, and forces himself to consider what must be done about their sons.

In the meantime, Midgard repeatedly goes to war.


End file.
